Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 M.2 SSD Review: A High-Performance Value
Tom’s Hardware Verdict
Now included in Intel’s NUC 11 Pro Kit NUC11TNKv7, Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 not only proves itself a fast-performing SSD in our testing, but it also lives up to Intel’s reliability standards. With high endurance and competitive pricing, Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 is a high-performance value.
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July 13, 2021 Update: We’ve updated this article with new testing for the 500GB Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 M.2 SSD on page 2.
Original Review published April 2, 2020:
- Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe 4.0 at Walmart for $89.99
Sabrent has a hot seller on its hands right now, and for good reason. The company’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 is cooked up with the same ingredients as the other Gen4 SSDs on the market so far. This means it’s packing Kioxia’s latest 3D TLC NAND and is powered by none other than Phison’s PS5016-E16 NVME SSD controller. And, while fairly expensive per GB, Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.
0 is priced it well under most high-end competitors, making it one of the best bang-for-your-SSD -buck Gen4 drives yet.
Just note that Sabrent’s warranty policy will only cover the Rocket NVMe 4.0 for up to 1 year if you do not register the SSD within 90 days of purchase. But, if you do, you will receive a longer 5-year warranty instead. That’s a small price to pay for a lower price on checkout.
Specifications
Swipe to scroll horizontally
| Header Cell — Column 0 | Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 500GB | Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 1TB | Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 2TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $89.99 | $159.99 | $399.99 |
| Capacity (User / Raw) | 500GB / 512GB | 1000GB / 1024GB | 2000GB / 2048GB |
| Form Factor | M. 2 2280 |
M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3 |
| Controller | Phison E16 | Phison E16 | Phison E16 |
| DRAM | DDR4 | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| Memory | Kioxia 96L TLC | Kioxia 96L TLC | Kioxia 96L TLC |
| Sequential Read | 5,000 MBps | 5,000 MBps | 5,000 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 2,500 MBps | 4,400 MBps | 4,400 MBps |
| Random Read | 400,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 550,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS | 750,000 IOPS |
| Security | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Endurance (TBW) | 850 TB | 1,800 TB | 3,600 TB |
| Part Number | SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-500 | SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-1TB | SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-2TB |
| Warranty | 5-Years w/ Registration; 1-Year w/out | 5-Years w/ Registration; 1-Year w/out | 5-Years w/ Registration; 1-Year w/out |
While you have to manually register your Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.
0 for its full warranty, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about the device’s endurance. With class-leading endurance ratings, our sample is covered to withstand up to 3,600TB of writes within the warranty period.
It comes in an M.2 2280 form factor and is available in three capacities: 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. In terms of price, the drive is hard to beat within its niche; it undercuts most other Gen4 SSDs out there. The 1TB and 2TB capacities are rated to hit sequential speeds of up to 5/4.4 GBps and up to 750,000 IOPS, and the smaller 500GB model’s write speed peaks at 2.5 GBps, along with lower peak random performance.
Software and Accessories
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Sabrent’s Rocket NVMe 4.0 comes supported by a few pieces of software. You get a free OEM copy of Acronis True Image. If you have any issues cloning due to the device’s sector size, there is Sabrent’s Sector Size Converter (SSC) which will allow you to change between 4K and 512e sector sizes for compatibility in that case.
Additionally, Sabrent provides a Control Panel application, an SSD Toolbox which you can use to monitor the device and upgrade the firmware if an update is ever released.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
A Closer Look
We have to give kudos to Sabrent on the black PCB and very attractive label design. The copper label looks nice and helps to aid in cooling, but on our 2TB sample, it may not be enough to prevent throttling under heavy loads. We will explore this more later on.
Image 1 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)(Image credit: Sabrent)(Image credit: Sabrent)(Image credit: Sabrent)(Image credit: Sabrent)
At the heart of the SSD is the Phison PS5016-E16 PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe 1.3 SSD controller. Built on a 28nm process node and featuring dual Cortex R5 CPU cores with dual co-processors (dubbed CoXProcessor 2.0), the overall design is similar to the Phison’s E12. The main difference between the two is not only the PCIe Gen4 PHY but additionally, it boasts Phison’s updated 4th Gen LDPC ECC engine.
It utilizes a DRAM caching architecture to maintain strong performance under heavy workloads. Our 2TB sample features two 1GB SK Hynix chips for the task of FTL table mapping.
It also supports thermal monitoring, TRIM, and the Format NVMe command to securely wipe data. Plus, it has end-to-end data protection to keep data safe and power management support for better efficiency.
Also, the device’s Kioxia’s BiCS4 96L TLC, which means our Rocket NVMe 4.0 sample is utilizing thirty-two 512Gbit NAND dies spread out into the four NAND packages on the PCB. And the drive has 9% of the NAND set as over-provisioning space to optimize garbage collection.
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Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review This is FAST
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB
Today we are taking a look at the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB NVMe SSD. We have previously reviewed the 2TB Rocket 4 Plus drive, but we are doing this review for two reasons. The first is that we have standardized on 1TB models for most of our performance testing and I wanted to be able to include the Rocket 4 Plus in our competitive graphs. This same reason is why we will soon be re-reviewing the Samsung 980 Pro 1TB, so stay tuned for that one. The second reason is that Sabrent has actually changed the NAND used in the Rocket 4 Plus since the initial release, and according to them performance has improved. Another 2TB Rocket 4 Plus was sent over and we will look at that drive in a later article and perform a head-to-head comparison between the old and new drives. For now, we will get to testing and see how the current Rocket 4 Plus 1TB performs.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB NVMe SSD
The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB comes in a single-sided M.
2 2280 (80mm) form factor. This front label is a thin metal heatspreader that can help keep the drive cool under a light load. We will learn more about that in thermal testing.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB Front
The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus bundles Micron 176-layer TLC NAND with the Phison PS5018-E18 controller. This is an identical setup to the Seagate FireCuda 530. This is a top-flight set of components and my performance expectations are very high for this drive.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB Back
The rear side of the drive has nothing except a label.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSD Specs
The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus line of SSDs is available in sizes between 1TB and 8TB.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB Specs from Sabrent
This spec sheet has been updated for the 176-layer variant of the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus. Right now on the Sabrent website for the Rocket 4 Plus the specs are for the original version of this drive and has not been updated yet; I am told they are working on fixing that.
While I am not a fan of changing drive components without issuing a new SKU, at least when Sabrent has done it here the specs are improving rather than getting worse, as well as acknowledging the change and updating the spec sheet. If you own one of the Rocket 4 Plus drives and are curious as to which model you own, the Sabrent Control Panel application can help you identify your drive. The original version of the Rocket 4 Plus has not been in distribution for about half a year, so new purchases of the Rocket 4 Plus should all be the new version.
Getting to those specs, the Rocket 4 Plus 1TB has all the rated performance of a top-end PCIe 4.0 SSD, with sequential reads at 7400 MB/s and writes at 6100 MB/s. The original variant of this drive was only rated at 7000/5300 respectively, so the improvement in specifications is not trivial. Even better than that is the very high 1275 TBW endurance rating; the original Rocket 4 Plus 1TB only had a 700 TBW rating. Lastly, the drive comes with a standard 5-year warranty which is the preferred length of warranty for a premium drive.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo can give us some basic information about the SSD and confirms we are operating at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds using NVMe 1.4.
Test System Configuration
We are using the following configuration for this test:
- Motherboard: ASUS PRIME X570-P
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (12C/24T)
- RAM: 2x 16GB DDR4-3200 UDIMMs
Our testing uses the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 1TB as the boot drive for the system, installed in the M.2_1 slot on the motherboard. The drive is filled to 85% capacity with data and then some is deleted, leaving around 60% used space on the volume.
Next, we are going to get into our performance testing.
Sabrent Rocket SSD Review: A great option for cheap and fast storage for your PC mechanical hard drives. The same goes for NVMe SSD storage versus 2.5″ SATA drives, but it’s not all bad news.
You can still keep a tight budget and get a fast SSD for your PC, and that’s what Sabrent Rocket is all about.
With prices starting as low as $40 for NVMe performance, even a super budget build can have great performance. nine0003
Budget Execution
Subrent Rocket
Bottom line: NVMe performance at a low cost is hard to ignore unless you’re cloning an existing drive.
Pros:
- Excellent reading speed
- Fantastic price
- Uses the quality of Toshiba NAND
- 5 year warranty
Cons:
- The 256 GB model is difficult compared to others in the 9 range0018
- Not the best choice for cloning existing disks
- From $40
Excellent performance
on a budget
One of the main reasons the Sabrent Rocket is worth considering at all is price. On the low end, the 256GB model I have here is only $40. There’s no other way to say it, it’s cheap for an NVMe SSD. But sometimes cheap can also ring alarm bells, so what are you really getting for your money? nine0003
Here is a summary of the main features.
| category | speculation |
|---|---|
| Capacity | 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB |
| Interface | PCIe Gen 3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3 |
| Sequential reading | Up to 3400 MB/s |
| Sequential write | Up to 3000MB/s |
| Random read | Up to 650,000 IOPS |
| Random entry | Up to 640,000 IOPS |
| NAND | 3D BiCS3 |
| controller | PS5012-E12 |
| Warranty | Five years |
It’s important to note that the best of the listed specs are for the 1TB model, which sells for just $110, less than half the comparable size of the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, our most recommended SSD. The 256GB I have is capped at sequential read and write speeds of 3100/1050MB/s, and random reads and writes are capped at 167,000 and 256,000 IOPS respectively.
All capacities come with fantastic read speeds, but 1TB is the cream of the crop.
The
Sabrent Rocket uses memory from Toshiba, which speaks volumes for its quality, and the five-year warranty is reassuring, especially when purchased from a less familiar brand. nine0003
Is this a quality product even if you only pay $40? Absolutely, and it starts right from the packaging. The Rocket comes in a small metal box, and as long as you discard the packaging, a good first impression is important. Subrent boxes > Samsung boxes.
In particular, I chose the cheapest model because I was interested in what you can get in terms of building a budget PC. And overall I was not disappointed.
Left — Sabrent Rocket, right — Samsung 970 EVO Plus.
Several key tests in CrystalDiskMark clearly show that Rocket achieves the manufacturer’s claims. You can also see how it compares to the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, which is much faster, especially when reading, but also significantly more expensive.
ATTO Disk Benchmark also shows a similar set of results with consistent read and write speeds as file sizes increase. If you’re doing a lot of big files, like video editing, you can still get more out of brands like Samsung or Western Digital, but for general PC builds, laptop upgrades, or gaming PCs, especially those on a budget, Rocket is the way to go. Ideal SSD for installing Windows and most of the applications you use. nine0003
Pair of
negatives
There is a lot to like about the Sabrent Rocket, but there are also some drawbacks. The most obvious is how the 256GB model got in the way compared to the rest of the range. If all you want is something to boot Windows and you want to spend as little as possible, this is still a great choice. The performance is much higher than any available SATA SSD. But in order to get the very best out of it, you need to ideally choose a 1TB model. nine0003
Even the 512GB model has significantly better performance than the entry-level version.
This is disappointing, and while performance differences at lower powers are not uncommon, the differences between rockets of different sizes are disappointing.
Cloning to one of them has extra steps due to the lack of emulation 512 bytes
Another less obvious thing to consider is if you are going to clone an existing drive to this one. It’s a bit of a pain. It uses 4k sectors and doesn’t have 512 byte emulation built in, which means without the right software, you just can’t clone this drive. Initially, this seemed like a bigger problem than it is now, as Sabrent has since released a utility that lets you reformat the drive and choose sector sizes. nine0003
But it’s not obvious that this tool even exists, and anything that lengthens the process won’t be able to win over fans. If you’re doing a clean install of Windows, then it’s not a drama at all. It works just like any other drive.
Is the
worth buying the Sabrent Rocket?
If good quality storage at an affordable price sounds good to you, then by all means get the Sabrent Rocket.
The $60 512GB model is probably the best for most people, with good value for money. nine0003
The $40 256GB model is still well above the performance you get from any SATA SSD, and so even if you just want to spend as little as possible, it’s a worthy buy.
4 of 5
However, the write speed on the cheapest version is disappointing, and if you’re going to clone your Rocket, you’ll have to jump through a few extra hoops. But even with that, this is one of the best NVMe SSM drives available. nine0003
Budget Execution
Sabrent Rocket
Great performance at a low price
Although the write speed is not the best, overall this is a great SSD, especially for the price, and a definite upgrade to an HDD or SATA SSD.
- From $40 at Amazon
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This Sabrent PCIe 4.0 SSD is all you need for ample storage — WebSetNet
Rocket 4 Plus 4 TB from Sabrent is so fast it flies to the moon.
I’ve already reviewed the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSD which managed to win our top award with a full score for being incredible. Here again we have the same family of fast NVMe storage, but today we are looking at the 4TB version. Sabrent managed to squeeze even more capacity out of their PCIe 4.0 SSD and we tried one of them to see how good the drive is. nine0003
If you are using an Intel Z590, AMD B550, or AMD X570 motherboard and a supporting processor, PCIe 4.0 will be available for additional bandwidth for better graphics card and SSD drives. We’ve seen some results possible with PCIe 4.0, resulting in data transfer rates of around 7,112MB/s, but the capacity is typically much lower than traditional mechanical hard drives.
Everything changes with the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4 TB)
Bottom line: Sabrent already made one of the fastest NVMe PCIe SSDs, but it wasn’t enough, so the company made a 4 TB version that allows you to store a huge collection of games and multimedia.
It’s as funny as it sounds.
Good
- Gorgeous design
- Incredibly fast PCIe 4.0 speed
- Excellent, stable transfer speed
- Better price than the competition
- Impressive capacity
Bad
- can get Actually hot
- expensive
9000 $ 900 on the Amazon
900 $ 900 in NEWEGG
Sabeen Rocket 4 Plus (4 TB): 9004
Solid state storage (SSD) is much more expensive than mechanical hard drives, resulting in flash storage being primarily used for OS installation and in some select cases. Solid state drives have become much more affordable and we can now buy higher capacity drives to match traditional hard drives. The 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus shows how far we’ve come. nine0003
You’ll be hard pressed to find this drive for less than its $900 suggested retail price, but keep an eye out for deals like Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday for deals. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus range starts at $200 for 1TB.
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB):
What You’ll Love
According to the manufacturer, the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus series of SSDs with PCIe 4.0 support deliver data transfer speeds of up to 7,100 MB/s. For PC owners, this means fast loading in games and impressive performance when storing and loading large files. nine0003
What’s great about Sabrent’s SSD lineup is the design that complements the serious speeds available in every capacity option. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB features a black printed circuit board (PCB) with a copper-based copper sticker that contains all the usual information about the drive and serves as passive cooling.
Incredible performance and impressive capacity make the 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus a must-have for serious data applications. nine0003
Installing the drive on a test bench with an NZXT N7 B550 motherboard and an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor, we were able to match Sabrent’s market read and write speeds respectively.
Many benchmarks were completed, including CrystalDiskMark to demonstrate sheer speed. As promised, the 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a real monster.
| Category | Sabrent Rocket PCIe 4.0 (2TB) | Samsung
Other notable features of this SSD include an endurance rating of 2,800 TBW (terabytes written) to failure and a five-year warranty for added peace of mind. Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB):What’s Not Good It’s well known that PCIe 4.0 SSDs can get hot, and the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB) is no exception. This drive can get very hot, especially if you don’t have passive cooling with motherboard covers or an aftermarket heatsink. AT 99% of the time this disc will run with no issues or thermal throttling, but when you start hitting the disc hard you start to notice a quick burst of thermals. The Rocket 4 Plus will sit comfortably at around 35°C, as will most of the SSDs in our test case. Only when you start running some synthetic tests or writing tests does the temperature reported via SMART (and confirmed by an infrared thermometer) increase to around 65°C with prolonged use. If you’re working with large files and plan on writing to flash storage all the time, you may find that the Rocket 4 Plus’s thermal choke drops slightly as you start to enter 80C territory, and that’s with the cover installed with thermal pads. PCIe 4.0 storage gets hot and it’s just a technology flaw, but most people buying an SSD won’t experience those temperatures. Sabrent sells an optional SSD Heatsink worth considering if you want to keep temperatures down a bit. nine0003 Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB):Competition The Samsung EVO 980 Pro is a close competitor to the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus SSD family. If you compare them with each other, the results will be approximately the same, and several blows will be exchanged here and there. When it comes down to it, you should choose an SSD with enough headroom for what you plan to use the storage for and for the price. Sabrent manages to undermine the competition, allowing the company to promote its drives not only as one of the best options in terms of storage performance, but also price per gigabyte. This is an important factor to consider when choosing large SSDs, and $0.23 per gigabyte with the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB) isn’t a terrible deal. nine0003 Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus (4TB):Should you buy it? You should buy this if…
Don’t buy this if…
I was very impressed with the 2TB and 4TB versions of the Sabrent Rocket 1 Plus, and the 4TB is no exception. |
|---|
This should be kept in mind when working with production applications or workstations. nine0003 
