At first, we would like to thank Sabrent for offering a sample of their Rocket 4 Plus-G NVMe Gen4 2280 2TB SSD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About Sabrent:

 

“At Sabrent, we create products that help people realize the power of technology and make people’s lives easier and better.

We have a proven track record to consumers and distribution partners, who are part of the rapidly growing Sabrent family.

 

Deliver the latest technology at an affordable price.

offer a broad product selection, specializing in items that sell.

Maintain large inventory levels and provide same day shipping.

Attractive retail packaging.

Instant live customer service and technical support, including remote access sessions.

No-nonsense product exchanges.

 

Sabrent’s commitment is to offer the latest technology and the highest quality consumer electronic products at an affordable cost to everyone. Since its founding, Sabrent has consistently delivered to market a full line of computer peripherals and accessories that incorporate style, quality and the latest technologies available.”

 

Product Features:

 

DirectStorage

Microsoft’s DirectStorage API provides an optimized path to storage which can reduce CPU overhead and I/O latency. This allows powerful NVMe SSDs to make the most of their innate parallelization to reduce load times and improve asset streaming. In the future it will also utilize your GPU to aid in decompression.

Content Creation

Not only can the Rocket 4 Plus G store it all, but it also enables you to multi-task with newfound agility. Game and create content at the same time. The Rocket 4 Plus-G is built for gaming under all conditions and can boost your productivity simultaneously.

High Capacity

Operating systems, game libraries, prosumer applications, and high-definition media - all are accessible from this singularly remarkable drive. Store it all with capacities up to a massive 4TB using the latest 3D TLC flash. Never delete a game to free up space again and stash your favorite 4K videos without worry.

Max Bandwidth

The Rocket 4 Plus G thrusts you into action at up to over 7GBps with immediate responsiveness to make sure you’re never left playing catch-up. Patience is a virtue, but velocity is divine. Forget annoying hitching and stuttering. Load environments and assets more quickly than ever before for silky-smooth gameplay.

State-Of-The-Art SSD

The new Rocket 4 Plus G is ready for take-off: our state-of-the-art O2 GO firmware helps launch the fastest storage - on or off the planet - to unprecedented heights. Never let your personal gaming adventure be cut short or hampered by glitchy playback. This is one SSD that can keep up with whatever you throw at it. Endurance is the name of the game, and it will never let you down.

O2 Game-Optimized Firmware

At the core of our Rocket 4 Plus G is our newest O2 GO firmware. It is specially engineered to elevate our cutting-edge hardware to all-new levels. Sustain high levels of performance throughout your long gaming session, without ever missing a beat.

 

Product Specifications:

 

Brand: SABRENT

Series: ROCKET 4 PLUS-G

Item model number: SB-RKTG-2TB

Item Weight: 2.71 ounces

Product Dimensions: ‎3.15 x 0.87 x 0.14 inches

Item Dimensions LxWxH: 3.15 x 0.87 x 0.14 inches

Hard Drive Interface: ‎NVMe

Memory Components: TLC

 

Sabrent has released a sightly optimized version of their Rocket 4 Plus speedy drive, now featuring Phison’s newly game-optimized I/O+ firmware (O2 GO) to bring DirectStorage-class performance to the users. For the drive to be more easily recognized, “-G” is added to the product name, but also the color scheme of the heatspreader is a bit more exotic.

 

As mentioned with the introduction of the technology, the storage stack overhead can be reduced by eliminating the efficiencies via BypassIO, which is an optimized pathway to the StorNVMe driver and storage device that reduces greatly the number of steps for data access. The NVMe SSD can be utilized as a sort of a cache for ordering streaming assets and data, so the GPU’s VRAM load will be reduced. Direct Storage does enable the GPU to access the SSD directly without the need of routing via the CPU, enabling game loading and transitions at higher speeds.

 

Sabrent was nice and has also sent the corresponding Rocket NVMe Heatsink bundle, which sports the same color scheme:

 

 

 

The Rocket 4 Plus-G drive is offered inside a small, familiar cardboard packaging, which shows the product on the frontal area, along with the total storage space:

 

 

 

On the back, we will note the product internal code name, but also the serial number:

 

 

 

On the side, Sabrent has noted the product code name again:

 

 

 

To highlight the new model, the aluminum casing comes with an interesting iridescent purple color, on both halves:

 

 

 

 

Inside, we will note the documentation, but also the drive cardboard protection, which do sport the same type of finishing:

 

 

 

 

PCIe 4.0 SSDs are known to run hot and right from the first page of the manual we will be reminded to use an additional heatsink:

 

 

 

The Rocket 4 Plus-G drive looks really cool with the pre-installed copper foil which acts as a heatspreader. The iridescent purple does look different depending on how the light is oriented:

 

 

 

On the back, we will note a regular sticker sporting the same SSD details, but also a QR code:

 

 

 

Here is how the copper foil does look after it has been removed from the drive:

 

 

 

On this drive, the PCB is quite crowded, including the central controller along with the DRAM for caching purposes, but also four NAND ICs:

 

 

 

The Phison PS5018-E18 Gen4 NVMe 8-channel controller was build on TSMC’s 12nm process and supports up to 8TB configurations, with a NAND transfer speed of 1600MT/s per channel:

 

 

 

The DRAM cache is a H5AN8G6NCJ DDR4 part from SK hynix, with a capacity of 1GB:

 

 

 

The Micron’s 176-layer TLC ICs can be found here as well, with the IA7BG94AYA part number, same as on the regular Rocket 4 Plus:

 

 

 

On the back side of the PCB, we will find four other NAND ICs and also the remaining 1GB of DRAM cache:

 

 

 

Before starting testing, we went ahead with the custom Rocket NVMe Heatsink installation:

 

 

 

The guide is easily available after removing the top cover:

 

 

 

We will need to follow the instructions depending on if the drive we are using is single-sided or dual-sided:

 

 

 

After the removal of the protective layer, we will get to see that Sabrent is offering all needed to perform the installation, including the screwdriver and the screws:

 

 

 

The iridescent pearl finishing is not only present on the heatsink, but also on the backplate:

 

 

 

The heatsink does follow the design lines of the one we have seen with the Rocket 4 Plus:

 

 

 

On the side, we will note the screw holes for fixing the heatsink properly onto the drive:

 

 

 

 

The bottom area is covered by a white thermal pad, which includes a transparent protective film on top:

 

 

 

Inside we will find three large copper heatpipes:

 

 

 

The opposite area looks the same, only now the mounting system has been simplified, with a large pre-mounted screw:

 

 

 

When using a single-sided SSD, we must replace the tray with the one not featuring an extra heat pad:

 

 

 

 

We will use the one with the pad pre-applied:

 

 

 

The Rocket 4 Plus-G can be easily placed on the tray, after removing the protective film:

 

 

 

Then we will attach the heatsink on top and install the four screws:

 

 

 

 

 

Test Bench:

The test system did incorporate a AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6-core CPU, a Sabrent Rocket 2x16GB DDR5 4800MHz C40 memory kit, a PowerColor Red Dragon Radeon RX 5700 video card but also a Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus NVMe 4.0 2TB SSD; all these were connected to the BIOSTAR X670E VALKYRIE AM5 motherboard. As a power supply we have chosen a Cooler Master 850W non-modular and the system was running the latest Windows 11 OS build as well.

The drive has arrived unformatted, but for testing purposes, we have formatted it NTFS:

 

 

With the help of AIDA64, we could extract more information regarding the drive:

 

 

The Tests

 

3DMark

Quick System Drive Benchmark

 

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Blank SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

Anvil [Read]

Anvil [Write]

PCMark 10

Quick System Drive Benchmark

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

 

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Blank SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Blank SSD

 

To continue the second part of our test, we did fill the drive over 50% with data.

 

While in IDLE, the Rocket 4 Plus-G will stay at very low temperature levels, thanks to the elaborated cooling solution:

 

 

 

The write process has started at optimal speeds:

 

 

 

During this time, the temperature did remain at very low levels:

 

 

 

After writing about 80GB, the speed dropped a little:

 

 

 

After a short while, it recovered to about 2.9GB/s:

 

 

 

The controller temperature remained at optimal levels:

 

 

 

After writing about 339GB, the speed remained about the same, with a very short dip to 1.8GB/s:

 

 

 

The temperature did raise to about 46 degrees Celsius, great in our book!

 

 

 

After writing about 700GB, the speed remained to about the same levels, which is fantastic!

 

 

 

The drive remained at the same performance till the end of the test (over 1.1TB written), something we haven’t seen so far with other drives in the past:

 

 

 

The highest temperature we have recorded was 56 degrees Celsius, much under the limit when throttling could occur:

 

 

 

The Tests

 

3DMark

Quick System Drive Benchmark

 

 

CrystalMark HDD Test Suite

 

AIDA64 Disk Test Suite

 

CrystalDisk Test Suite (Random)

 

HDTune Test Suite

Filled SSD

 

PCMark Vantage HDD Test Suite

 

Anvil [Read]

Anvil [Write]

PCMark 10

Quick System Drive Benchmark

 

Extra Tests:

 

AS SSD Benchmark

Filled SSD

AS SSD Benchmark (IOPS)

Filled SSD

ATTO Disk Benchmark

Filled SSD

 

The new Rocket 4 Plus-G 2TB performed admirably in our tests, trading punches with the non-G variant while kept blank but outperforming it when filled more than 50%. We did also note a sustained write rate much higher than the drives we have tested before, being able to finish writing over 1.1TB with about 2.7GB/s, which is quite impressive! The offered heatsink really does its job and prevents throttling during intense workloads, for the Rocket 4 Plus-G to always perform at its top.

 

In our HD Tune Pro workload, the graph shows again a high sustained write rate:

 

 

 

At the time of the review, the drive was not really in stock in Europe, but is readily available in USA for about $300; if we do purchase the package with the heatsink, then we do have a total of $320.

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus-G NVMe Gen4 2280 2TB SSD is Recommended for:

 

 

 

We would like to thank again to Sabrent for making this review possible!