INTRODUCTION

   Over the recent months many of you have reached out and asked my opinion on CHIA, not only on whether or not it's worth investing into but also in regards to what solid state drives to get for plotting. By now pretty everyone knows that manufacturers have begun to roll-out test/engineering samples of their CHIA targeted drives (for example Sabrent has their PlotRippers) but for now there aren't that many valid solutions around in the market, not when even some of the most durable TLC models in the market don't surpass 3600TBW in terms of write endurance (and even that is something you don't see much). So, after going around searching for the best possible choices i came across the Rocket M.2 NVMe Gen3x4 line and more specifically the 4TB variant released by Sabrent in late 2019 that features impressive endurance of 6070TBW.

   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.

   The Rocket line of M.2 NVMe SSDs by Sabrent is currently available in 256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB/4TB capacities and is based on the Phison E12S controller paired with Western Digital BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash and 8GB of DRAM. The Phison PS5012-E12S controller features a total of eight NAND channels with 32 CE targets, supports up to 8TB of NAND, is Toggle 3.0 & ONFi 4.0 compliant and packs several technologies aimed at both high performance and reliability including StrongECC, SmartRefresh, SmartFlush, end-to-end data protection, thermal monitoring, AES-256 encryption, SLC caching and TCG Pyrite/OPAL support. As for endurance Sabrent reports an MTBF (mean time between failures) of 1.8 million hours and as expected covers the entire Rocket line with a limited 5-year warranty (after online registration).