INTRODUCTION

   With the very first PCIe 5.0 (Gen5) enterprise SSDs making their debut as we enter 2022 it's a safe bet that consumers will not need to wait a lot longer before they get their hands on one as well. Until that happens however PCIe 4.0 (Gen4) M.2 NVMe SSDs are still the fastest consumer oriented models and with speeds ranging from up to 5000MB/s for the 1st generation and up to over 7000MB/s (reads) for the 2nd many consumers may not even consider moving to an PCIe 5.0 model for many years to come (double speeds going all the way up to 13000MB/s for reads are of course great but obviously mostly targeted towards professionals). After quite a few email requests however instead of taking a look at one of the latest PCIe 4.0 models in the market today with me i have a somewhat older one and more specifically the very first PCIe 4.0 (Gen4) M.2 NVMe SSD to be released by Sabrent in late 2019, the Rocket 4.0 2TB.

   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.

   Much like most 1st gen PCIe 4.0 (gen4) M.2 NVMe SSDs the Rocket 4.0 (currently available in 500GB/1TB/2TB capacities) is based on the PS5016-E16 NAND flash controller (dual-core 32-bit ARM Cortex R5 with CoXProcessor Technology) by Phison which Sabrent has paired with Toshiba's BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash together with a grand total of 4GB DDR4 2666MHz SDRAM by SK Hynix in two modules. The PS5016-E16 NAND flash controller features Phison's 4th Gen LDPC engine with dynamic range SLC cache, end-to-end data path protection, smartECC (RAID ECC), wear levelling, thermal throttling, TRIM, bad block management and fully supports AES-256bit hardware encryption, TCG Opal 2.0, Pyrite, Sanitize and Crypto Erase. As for durability/endurance Sabrent reports an MTBF of 1.7 million hours for the entire line and TBW of 850 for the 500GB model, 1800 for the 1TB model and 3600 for the 2TB model (as with all their other models the limited warranty is set at 1 year by default and 5 after online registration). So, let's see what the 1st PCIe 4.0 (Gen4) M.2 NVMe by Sabrent has to offer especially compared to all the newer models.