Patriot Memory was recently caught with its pants down when some owners of its Viper VPN100 M.2 SSDs realized that they came with the smaller Phison E12S controller and 512 MB of DRAM cache instead of what was promised on its original specifications sheet (E12 controller, 2 GB of DRAM cache). Patriot Memory has now issued a statement to address the controversy, blaming the swapping of hardware on supply shortages. Despite the difference in hardware, Patriot promises that the revised VPN100 operates similar to the original release and is capable of hitting the same performance specifications in sequential read/write and random IOPS. The new version of Patriot’s VPN100 m.2 SSD is also said to feature the same endurance limits as the original.
Due to the ongoing fab shortages affecting the global IC supply chain, in 2020 Patriot opted to utilize the Phison E12S controller in addition to the Phison E12 for the full VPN100 series (256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB). We confirm this is the only Viper SSD series affected. The E12S uses less cache but offers the same performance as the E12 controller because it is produced using the latest fab process and innovative
firmware development.
Source: Patriot Memory