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Without a doubt, the loudest a reader can be in the SSD world is when a company dares to switch hardware in their SSDs without telling anyone. This goes back years and, well, few have escaped the wrath of online ridicule when they are caught doing such. I have always been the bad guy and still believe that manufacturers have every right to do such, so long as they don’t affect their posted specifications in any way. (Donning ballistic vest once again) Believe it or not, it happens in EVERY business and most never know… haven’t a clue in fact. But not in the SSD industry!
So what about Sabrent? They have recently change NAND flash memory in all of their Rocket 4 Plus PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and not said a word to anyone. Nobody seems to care. There is no uproar. No rumblings and not even a whisper…not even from Sabrent… and there should be. You see, Sabrent has secretly upgraded each and every capacity of their Rocket 4 Plus NVMe SSDs from Micron 3D TLC 96-Layer NAND to the industries best Micron 3D TLC B47R 176-Layer NAND and you can get that on Amazon at an amazing price right now. Lowest price in the industry for B47R SSDs in fact.
So what’s the difference? Let’s cut to the chase and show you old and new on our AMD Test Bench well before we get into the meat and gravy of this report.
Exact same SSD. Exact same capacity. Exact same TSSDR AMD Test Bench. Different memory. And there is most obviously a significant difference in our initial Crystal DiskMark test. If you would like to follow along with our other former test results, last years Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB Gen 4 SSD Review can be found here, but we will give you a heads up. That report was done with our AMD Test Bench whereas today’s is being done with our newer Intel Z590 Test Bench. Results will differ significantly with different systems, unlike the above which were both on the AMD Bench.
The Rocket 4 Plus SSD we are testing today came with a rather stunning PS5 cover and it’s rather unfortunate we don’t have a PS5 as we can’t install this any other way. It won’t install into a typical test bench in any way shape or form. I can say this about testing the new Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus however; it is alot cooler even without a heatsink and we know this as that is how this was tested.
No heatsink with ambient temps in the high 30’s and that could not have been done prior. Yes we hit high 60s in some of the tests but that’s a far cry from the 80°C temps we were used top back then.
The ‘updated’ Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus is a PCIe 4.0 x4 (four lane) M.2 SSD that uses the latest NVMe 1.4 protocol. Our sample today came with the PS5 heatsink and available capacities are 500GB. 1,2 and 4TB…our sample being 4TB.
It is a 2280 (80mm) size and contains the Phison PS5018-E18 8-channel Gen4 NVMe controller, along with 8-pieces of Micron 3D TLC 176-Layer B47R Fortis NAND flash memory, four on each side of the SSD. There is also a single package NANYA DDR4 DRAM memory on each side as well. As one can see, removing the sticker leaves an unforgettable reminder that you just voided any warranty you might one day need.
Listed specs show the 4TB version at 7000MB/s read and 6600MB/s write which is well above the required speed of 5500MB/s that PS5 needs from its installed SSD. The Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus comes with a 5-year limited warranty and pricing at Amazon with the PS5 heatsink can be seen at $99.99 (500GB), $179.99 (1TB), $329.99 (2TB) and $769.99 for the 4TB version we are testing today.
Too expensive, too little storage capacity, too slow copying for small files, no PCIe V.5, I hate the SSD manufacturers wholeheartedly for the unnecessary delay of progress. Guys I finally want to take plenty of 100MP photos and 8K120fps videos and be able to save them without having to buy dozens of USB 4 hubs and stack them so that I have enough SSD storage available as a huge heater!
Thanks for your reply and I, as well, hope to be reviewing same in PCIe 5.0 soon enough. It is a process and i think that by next year at this time we will be comfortably enjoying 12GB/s and higher. Thank you for taking the time to comment; it is great to hear from readers so far away and you have followed us for some time if I am correct. Danke!
The technology of digital cameras, etc. will continue to evolve in the future and more and more data will be generated. For decades, there has been a lack of a solution to satisfy this problem sufficiently and to provide storage space for fast and cheap backup of data. I can only hope that the manufacturers will offer an alternative in the near future, such as a one-time recordable SSD similar to a CD-R. This should offer at least 16TB of storage space at a non-binding price of no more than 32, – € per TB. I will continue to watch the market for the next 3-5 years and if there is still nothing sufficient, then I will have to make my own solution for myself…
I think it’s a great price when comparing to similar products. Just bought the FireCuda 530 4TB for almost 100€ more. Plus there’s an 8TB option from Sabrent, right? Guess endurance is better with Seagate, although I couldn’t find any details on this on their homepage.
The Firecuda 530 is a dynamite SSD and any 4TB version is pure gold. I don’t concern myself much with endurance as we have been in the game here since 2007 and I haven’t found any reason to bother myself; these are worlds ahead of hard drives and we might see a fluke once in a blue moon. Another long time poster and thank you.
As far as I know, Sabrent’s 8TB SSDs are all QLC-based.
All these reviews keep mentioning the Plextor M10P. But has anyone anywhere in the world actually seen one of these for sale? If I’ll never be able to buy it why should I care?
I was first expecting a shocker, that things went bad!
Hahaha.
Thanks for the test, as always those years.
Yes, there is progress being made in the last 2 years of pcie 4.0 ssd, but this ssd is a somewhat dazzler; they catched up switching the nand, but the small file-test shows the ssd is a dazzler in real world applications. Even with large 4 TB, which should made it write/read pseudo-slc-cache only.
TBW is standard. Sequential 64k is only good in benchmarks, the IOPS only reached in benchmarks, real world it is halfed.
Les Tokar, if you finally would start – please! – to switch your ssd tests from 80 % nonsical-the-same-programm-benchmarks, which the developers trim the ssd (to shine in synthetical test), we all could see what the ssds are really about.
You could start to switch one benchmark at a time 😉
I find it a waste, that you have such nice writing skills, humor, test methodology, vitamin B (connections), knowledge, but then waste the test product for 80 % the same becnhmark-runs, just to fill pages.
Thank you for taking the time to respond and the comps. I hear what you are saying with respect to the type of tests completed but we do seem to get the best return with respect to the way we have our reports put together. Who knows…maybe we will include something a bit different down the road. Thanks again.
Nice stuff, thanks! Can Phison NVMe Flash ID utility report the different NAND type? Have you tried?
I can confirm that phison_nvme_flash_id2 detects B47R properly, so you can make it sure without removing any label.