INTRODUCTION

   When in the market for a brand new SSD (solid state drive) or even when talking about them there are several names that immediately come to mind like Kingston, Samsung and of course Intel. This is by no means strange, for example when i think about graphics cards the very first brands that come to mind are EVGA, ASUS, GIGABYTE and MSI so this is something that actually happens to everyone. Still there are many smaller but equally impressive manufacturers out there that have taken the market by storm and just like with graphics cards and names like Sapphire when it comes to SSDs, we have Silicon Power. If there's one thing however in the electronics industry that I’ve always liked it's the fact that there are always hidden gems around and the USA based Sabrent seems to be among those.

   Sabrent is a leading American manufacturer of computer peripherals and accessories, bringing uniquely styled quality products to consumers worldwide. 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.

   Some of you may recall the MLC (multi-level cell) vs SLC (single-level cell) flash memory comparison we used to have with the very first SSDs, that is until the TLC (triple-level cell) type arrived on the scene. Now TLC didn't offer the same durability levels as MLC and SLC but thanks to the addition of a small amount of SLC cache (pseudo-SLC NAND) it was almost as fast and much more affordable. QLC (quad-level cell) flash memory is the latest addition to this and again even though it may not be quite as fast and durable as TLC (and in effect not nearly as fast and durable as MLC and SLC) it's much more affordable, allows for much higher capacities (four times over SLC for example) and again thanks to SLC caching it's quite fast. The Rocket Q line of M.2 NVMe SSDs (available currently in 500GB/1TB/2TB/4TB/8TB capacities) by Sabrent uses QLC flash memory (Micron's 96-layer NAND to be exact) along with Phison's E12S eight-channel controller (Sabrent calls it RKT-303) and 4GB of DDR3L DRAM by Kingston (for the 2TB model i have here). Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen an SSD with the eight-channel (32 CE targets) Phison E12S controller which supports several interesting technologies like SLC caching, StrongECC, SmartRefresh, SmartFlush, LDPC (low density parity check), end-to-end data protection, thermal monitoring, AES-256 encryption, ONFi 2.3/3.0/3.2/4.0 and TCG Pyrite/OPAL support. As for endurance Sabrent reports an MTBF (meantime between failure) of 1.8 million hours with a TBW (Terabytes Written) of 530 (the entire Rocket Q line of SSDs is covered by a 5-year limited warranty).