Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB M.2 SSD Review

1. Introduction & Drive Details
2. Free SSD Software
3. Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM & Anvils
4. Synthetic Benchmarks: AS SSD & ATTO
5. Real-World Testing: Transfer Rates & Gaming
6. Real-World Testing: PCMark 10 Storage Tests
7. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 99%

The Bottom Line

You want it all? Sabrent's 4TB Rocket 4 Plus will give it to you.

Buy at Amazon

Introduction & Drive Details

If we've learned anything this past year, it's that capacity is KING. Sabrent has almost single-handedly shown all of us this truth by offering unprecedented capacities for M.2 NVMe SSDs. Sabrent does what Sabrent does, so naturally, they are the world's first to step up to the plate with a 7,000 MB/s consumer SSD in a 4TB capacity.

Something else we've recently learned, at least when a drive is Phison powered, is that the higher the capacity, the faster the drive. This has proven to be the case for all Sabrent's high capacity QLC SSDs, and now their Phison E18 TLC powered SSDs. This, of course, means that Sabrent's 4TB Rocket 4 Plus is their new performance leader.

The 4TB Rocket 4 Plus sports sequential ratings of 7,200 MB/s read and 6,900 MB/s, both of which are the highest for any E18 powered SSD to date. The drive's sequential write speed is not just the highest ever for a Sabrent offering. It is the highest for any consumer SSD in the known world - an amazing feat considering the 4TB model sports the very same 96L Micron 1,200 MT TLC flash as its older siblings.

When you have this level of performance attached to this kind of capacity all wrapped up and delivered on a tiny M.2 x 2280 PCB, you have something truly special. We believe that even though it's not the absolute fastest SSD at absolutely everything, it is without question the most desirable consumer SSD ever offered for the enthusiast/prosumer community.

We could get our hands-on this god-like piece of hardware well before anyone else, so we don't even know what it will cost. One thing for sure, it will cost a pretty penny, but of course, the best of the best always does. Whatever the cost turns out to be, an epic beast like this will be a must-have for hardcore gamers, prosumers, and enthusiasts across the planet.

Okay, enough slobbering over the new King of SSDs, now let's do this.

Drive Details

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Jon's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair Hero VIII Wi-Fi (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
• Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 420 (buy from Amazon)
• Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 4000 (PC4-32000) C19 (buy from Amazon)
• Video Card: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2070 WINDFORCE 8G (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair AX1000 (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (buy from Amazon)

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB NVMe PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 SSD

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$179.99	$179.99	$179.99	$199.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 3/31/2023 at 10:50 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Free SSD Software

Sabrent Rocket Control Panel/Acronis for Sabrent

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With Sabrent's Rocket Control Panel, you can perform numerous useful functions to maintain your Sabrent NVMe SSD, and Sabrent's exclusive version of Acronis True Image cloning software is just a click away.

Additionally, with Sabrent's brand new Rocket Control Panel you can benchmark your Sabrent SSD with various data patterns that are customizable by the user. Super cool.

Use Sabrent's Rocket Control Panel to register your SSD within 90 days, to extend the drive's warranty period from 1-year to 5-years.

Synthetic Benchmarks: CDM & Anvils

CrystalDiskMark

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We begin our testing with a new lab record for sequential writes. The 4TB model delivers about 300 MB/s more sequential write performance than its 2TB sibling. Sequential read performance is also up by about 100 MB/s over the 2TB model. Even Q1T1 random write is up a tiny bit, resulting in a new lab record for E18-based SSDs. Impressive.

Anvil's Storage Utilities

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Our new King of SSDs obliterates the previous ASU scoring record held by its 2TB sibling, delivering a lab first 28K performance for a flash-based SSD running as system disk 50% filled with data. Amazing.

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1.2 million random write IOPS at QD64 is what we've come to expect as a minimum from Phison E18 powered SSDs. We would like to see better random read performance, but that's not happening with current 96L Micron flash.

Synthetic Benchmarks: AS SSD & ATTO

AS SSD

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When it comes to AS SSD, the only thing that can compete with a Phison E18 powered SSD is another E18 powered SSD. This time its 2TB sibling hangs on to its crown for total score. However, the 4TB does set a new lab record for write scoring.

ATTO

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ATTO is also owned 100% by Phison E18 Powered SSDs. Aside from capabilities that include up to 7,648 MB/s sequential throughput, E18 based SSDs are the only SSDs that deliver full performance for both read and write at 128K transfers. Our 4TB monster beats out its 2TB sibling when programming ATTO generated sequential data (lab record), but the 2TB model serves data to the host slightly faster.

Real-World Testing: Transfer Rates & Gaming

Transfer Rates

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As we move into real-world testing, the 4TB Rocket 4 plus delivers more than any Phison E18 based SSD we've ever tested. It passes up the Gammix S70 and almost catches Samsung's 980 Pro in the process. Impressive.

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The addlink S95 2TB is another Phison E18 based SSD, but it's using older firmware, which is faster in some cases, like this one, so it keeps the E18 performance crown for this test. The Gammix S70 is still our overall leader for read transfer rate.

Game Level Loading

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Here we see that the 4TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus outperforms all other E18 based SSDs we've tested to date when loading game levels, showing itself to be one of the better Gen4 gaming SSDs on the market.

Real-World Testing: PCMark 10 Storage Tests

PCMark 10 Storage Test is the most advanced and most accurate real-world consumer storage test ever made. There are four different tests you can choose from; we run two of them.

The Full System Drive Benchmark and the Quick System Drive Benchmark. The Full System Drive Benchmark writes 204 GB of data over the duration of the test. The Quick System Drive Benchmark writes 23 GB of data over the duration of the test. These tests directly correlate with user experience. Of the two tests, we feel that the Quick System Drive Test most accurately replicates a typical user experience.

PCMark 10 Full System Drive Benchmark

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The 4TB Rocket 4 Plus does heavy workloads a lot better than we were expecting. It's considerably faster than its 2TB sibling but can't quite catch addlink's S95. Again, this is due to the S95's older and sometimes better firmware. Nevertheless, a good showing.

PCMark 10 Quick System Drive Benchmark

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This time, and despite its slight firmware disadvantage, the 4TB Rocket 4 Plus overpowers the S95 and serves up the best result we've seen from a Phison E18 powered SSD to date. This where we want to see excellent performance, and that's what we get.

Final Thoughts

Capacity is indeed King, and Sabrent knows this better than anyone, as they have demonstrated throughout their meteoric rise to the top of the solid-state storage food chain. As our testing thoroughly demonstrates, their newest SSD is their best SSD. It's blazing fast. In some cases, it's the fastest consumer SSD. In other cases, it's not. However, when we take capacity and add that to the equation, we can only come to one conclusion. The 4TB Rocket 4 Plus is, in our opinion, the most desirable consumer SSD we've seen to date. If we only got to have one SSD, it would be this one.

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Tier-1 user experience to go along with that class-leading capacity is what makes this drive so special.

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Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus delivered a whole host of standout performances, including CDM, where it delivered the world's best sequential write throughput for a consumer SSD. Then our test subject delivered what we will assume is the world's highest Anvil's score for a flash-based consumer SSD 50% filled with data. It transferred our 100GB block of data at a rate second only to Samsung's 980 Pro and much faster than any E18 based SSD we've tested so far. It showed its prowess as a gaming SSD and finally delivered an outstanding user experience, as verified by PCM10.

We called it the King of SSDs, so of course, Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus 4TB has earned TweakTown's highest award.

Pros

• Sequential Performance
• Gaming
• Free Software
• 7,200/6,900 Seq.

Cons

• Random Read