We study the performance of GaN-based p–i–n ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors (PDs) with a 60 nm thin p-type contact layer grown on patterned sapphire substrate (PSS). The PDs on PSS exhibit a low dark current of ~2 pA under a bias of -5 V, a large UV/visible rejection ratio of ~7×103, and a high-quantum efficiency of ~40% at 365 nm under zero bias. The average quantum efficiency of the PDs still remains above 20% in the deep-UV region from 280 to 360 nm. In addition, the noise characteristics of the PDs are also discussed, and the corresponding specific detectivities limited by the thermal noise and the low-frequency 1/f noise are calculated.