INTRODUCTION

   Without doubt one of the things in the electronics industry that has evolved considerably (and far more than others) over the past 20 years is flash storage media, especially portable ones. I still remember my very first USB flash drive back in early 2001 which was just 128MB in capacity and was still more than plenty for all my needs so when in just 20 years from 256MB (which was the highest available capacity back then) we've jumped to 4TB (for portable SSDs - 2TB for USB flash drives) it seems pretty amazing really. Capacity however is not the only thing that has increased, just take into account that back in 2001 theoretical USB speeds didn't surpass 48MB/s (most drives didn't even do 30MB/s) whereas today many drives go up to 1000MB/s (USB 3.2 Gen2) and some have even breached the 2000MB/s mark (USB 3.2 Gen2x2). The Rocket Nano Rugged USB 3.2 Gen2 portable SSD was released by Sabrent in 2020 and since it somehow managed to fly under my radar this is what I'll be testing today.

   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.

   Unlike the "regular" Rocket Nano line which is available in silver, black, blue, pink, red and gold colors the Rocket Nano Rugged is available in just silver (both lines are available in 512GB/1TB/2TB capacities). Inside the IP67 certified sandblasted aluminum enclosure (water, dust and drop resistant) of the Rocket Nano Rugged Sabrent has placed the PS5013-E13T NAND flash controller by Phison together with 96-layer BiCS4 3D TLC NAND flash by KIOXIA. The PS5013-E13T is a DRAM-less quad-channel (16 CE) PCIe Gen3x4 NVMe v1.3 NAND flash controller which packs features like dynamic write acceleration (SLC pseudo-cache), host memory buffer (HMB), end-to-end data path protection, smartECC (RAID ECC), redundant array of independent NAND (RAIN), thermal monitoring, TRIM, integrated power loss immunity, active garbage collection, AES-256 encryption and TCG Pyrite/OPAL support (Toggle 3.0 and ONFi 4.0 are also supported). So, time to check and see just how the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB compared to several other portable SSDs.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Sabrent has once again used an aluminum box with a product picture at the front and its features at the rear to ship their product inside.

No problems in terms of protection during shipping (if anything the box is a bit large).

Along with the Rocket Nano Rugged inside the box you'll also find an USB-C to USB-C cable and a USB-A to USB-C cable.

THE ROCKET NANO RUGGED 2TB

The body of the Rocket Nano Rugged measures roughly 73mm in length, 44mm in width and 17mm in thickness/height.

To see just how compact the Rocket Nano Rugged is i placed it next to Kingston DT MAX, Mushkin CarbonX, ADATA SE760 and the Samsung T1 and T3 models.

Removing the rubber protective/bumper will save you a couple of millimetres per side.

Sabrent has placed the activity LED on top of the drive and the USB-C port at the front.

The drive sits on two rubber feet and has its 2D barcode and serial printed at the base.

Accessing the interior is not hard since it's held in place with just 4 screws (located beneath the rubber feet).

On one side of the PCB, we find the Phison PS5013-E13T NAND flash controller together with two NAND flash modules by Kioxia.

On the other side we find two more NAND flash modules under a sticker with the product serial number, 2D barcode and capacity.

TEST BED

TESTING METHODOLOGY

   Solid state drives are basically the same as USB flash drives and so we’re using almost the same testing methodology to successfully record achieved read & write performance numbers in our charts*. The benchmark suites used are HD Tach RW (Read Speeds / Long Bench 32mb Zone Testing), HD Tune Pro (Read / Write speeds), Sisoftware Sandra Titanium 2020 (Read / Write speeds), AIDA64 Engineer Edition (Average Linear / Random Read & Write speeds), Crystal Disk Mark 6.0.2 (2GB Read / Write speeds) and finally ATTO 4.00.0F2 (Max Read / Max Write speeds). Every test is repeated a total of 6 times after which the average performance numbers are recorded into our charts (0 = we were unable to complete that test).

   All tests are performed with our main rig running Microsoft Windows 10 Pro installation on a CORSAIR MP510 960GB NVME SSD* with all updates installed up to the day we started tests.

* Since August 2019 for portable SSD tests I started using the X299 test rig.
** For USB 3.2 Gen2x2 portable SSDs I’ll be using the Z590 DARK based test rig.

TEST RESULTS - AIDA64 / ATTO

TEST RESULTS - HD TACH RW / HD TUNE PRO

TEST RESULTS - SISOFTWARE SANDRA TITANIUM / CRYSTAL DISK MARK

CONCLUSION

   Sabrent may have released the Rocket Nano Rugged line roughly 2 years ago but as you can see from the charts it’s still doing extremely well, even against models released a lot later. As a matter of fact, the real performance gaps obviously appear only when compared to USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 drives (and yes, even the X6 4TB when used with such a port). Out of curiosity i did test the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB with the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 port of my Z590 test rig but saw no real performance benefits (again, unlike the X6 4TB). The sole “issue” (if you can even call it that) i have with the Rocket Nano Rugged is its available capacities since 2TB might just not be enough for some people (Sabrent does have 4-8TB models so it may not be long before we see such a model in the Rocket Nano line).

   So, what about price? Well, currently retailing with a price tag of USD289.99 inside the USA (Sabrent.com) and 299.99Euros inside the EU (Amazon.de) the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSD is certainly not what I’d call affordable. Granted, there aren’t that many rugged portable SSDs in the market today (and the ones available are certainly not as compact) and i do like the thick sandblasted aluminum enclosure but this is still one of the most expensive USB 3.2 Gen 2 2TB drives out there. That aside however the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB delivers on everything else and thus gets the Golden Award.

PROS

- Excellent Build Quality (Sandblasted Aluminum Enclosure)
- Compact Size
- Very Good Performance
- IP67 Certified Aluminum Housing
- Rubber Bumper

CONS

- Price (For Some)
- Available Capacities (Up To 2TB)