Introduction
Sabrent Rocket Q 1TB NVMe M2 SSD
Q level M.2.Class SSD performance
We review the Sabrent Rocket Q 1TB, a fast M.2 SSD that you can purchase for 129 USD these days. Labeled with Reads and Writes in the 3200/2000 MB/s ranges there however is an oddity to be found with this series, as that Q in the naming implies a substantial difference compared to what you are used and accustomed to. Wanna know what that is? Yes Hilbert, of course, Q is short for QLC NAND technology, which means four bits are written NAND storage cell. Storing more bits in the same amount of storage cell space obviously sounds fantastic, cheaper prices, and bigger storage volumes. However, the thing is that QLC does come with a challenge, as endurance on QLC drives is not as high as you’ll find on TLC drives.
QLC thus means more value and volume at the cost of endurance. The Rocket Q is available in multiple volumes sizes starting at the version we test, a 1TB, model. But available is a 2TB and even 4 TB model. Sabrent is claiming numbers that run into the 3200 MB/s; read speeds and up to 2000 MB/s for these M2 SSDs, at 11 cents per GB. the bigger volume sizes are a notch faster btw as there are more NAND channels to utilize. The sequential performance of the 1TB model is 3,200 MB/s read and 2,000 MB/s write with Random 4K performance of up to 125,000 IOPS Read and 500,000 IOPS Write. However the 2TB model has a sequential performance increase up to 3,200 MB/s read and 3,000 MB/s write with Random 4K performance of up to 255,000 IOPS Read and 675,000 IOPS Write. QLC NAND or not, what Sabrent does well is to back their claims, they even offer 5 years warranty (but you do need to register your product for that). The TBW (TeraBytes Written—the total amount of data that a company is willing to guarantee can be written to the drive) ratings of 260 TBW for the 1 TB model drives.
- SB-RKTQ-1TB – 260 TBW
- SB-RKTQ-2TB – 530 TBW
- SB-RKTQ-4TB – 940 TBW
The SSD is based on that familiar Phison E12S controller and of course, has been fitted with QLC written NAND from Kioxia (formerly Toshiba). The performance will vary depending on volume size. The SSD is a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe 1.3) M.2 form factor SSD. The performance numbers of a proper SATA3 SSD offers these days are simply excellent, but with the more niche NVMe SSDs you can easily quadruple performance, which offers serious numbers. The unit follows a smaller M.2 2280 form factor (8cm) so it will fit on most ATX motherboards capable of M.2 just fine. Anyway, wanna see how fast it really is? Next page and onwards into the review then.
