Conclusion
We have just reviewed the Sabrent 500GB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-NVMe4-500). On Sabrent’s website, the drive is currently $119.99. However, it can actually be had cheaper on Amazon for only $89.98, and that is a more appropriate price for this particular capacity SSD. There are different capacities of the Sabrent Rocket SSD, and the 500GB model we have reviewed today does have the lowest write speed of 2500MB/s. All three have the same read speeds of 5000MB/s.
Performance
In terms of performance, it was obvious that the slower 2500MB/s write performance was going to hold the 500GB SSD down. This showed up in pretty much every benchmark. We saw it in PCMark 10’s overall score and PassMark’s PerformanceTest overall score.
In CrystalDiskMark we found that the sequential read performance was right at the theoretical maximum 5000MB/s, so it was performing great on read performance. The Sabrent Rocket 500GB also did well in its write performance for what it was rated at, especially surprising in random performance. It performed just as it was supposed to perform. However, that performance was well below the CORSAIR Force MP600 1TB’s write performance. It did slump a little also in sequential write performance rather than random write performance.
In AS SSD the Sabrent Rocket 500GB fell behind in copy benchmarks, for ISO, Program, and Game data files. However, in DiskBench it did better in copying a large 50GB file from the same drive to the same drive, so copying large files could be competitive. The Sabrent Rocket 500GB did fall behind in-game load times, and very importantly it fell behind in workstation applications. For workstation applications, you’d probably want a larger capacity drive anyway.
Cooling
The Sabrent Rocket has a good thing going for it, it’s single-sided, even in the 1TB and 2TB capacities. Being single-sided means it is easier to cool, and will also work better in laptops. If you need to upgrade a laptop, a single-sided SSD is the way to go. It has fewer modules on board, and you only need to cool one side.
Sabrent also has versions of the Rocket SSD that include a customized Sabrent heatsink in the package. Therefore, if your motherboard doesn’t have an M.2 heatsink, this would be the recommended installation. The Sabrent heatsink for this SSD is going to be more robust and cool the SSD better than your motherboard’s M.2 heatsink.
However, if you do have a motherboard M.2 heatsink, you could save a little money and get the one without the included heatsink. We definitely recommend you use a heatsink, and Sabrent also recommends you use one: “When installing any NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD directly onto a PCIe Gen4 Motherboard a Heatsink is required to dissipate the heat generated by the drives extreme speed levels to avoid thermal throttling and maximize performance.”
Rocket Control Panel
Sabrent’s Rocket Control Panel is a very feature-rich application for the SSD. We like that it allows you to search for and update your firmware. We also like that it shows the health of the drive and runs S.M.A.R.T. checks. It also lists detailed drive info, including power states, which is great. It also has a temperature graph which is nice for tracking initial temp and peak temp. The only feature that is a mess is the speed test. It’s not very user-friendly to have to run it via DOS commands in a DOS window. There should be a button inside the app to run benchmarks and then show them in some kind of bar graph form.
Otherwise, utility and function are furthered with Acronis cloning software. This just really improves the capabilities by being able to do Secure Erase and disk cloning, as well as backup. The only feature missing would be an option to manually adjust overprovisioning.
Final Points
The Sabrent Rocket 500GB PCIe Gen4 SSD performs as expected. It performs at the top of its rated speed profile and rated write profiles. It actually did well in random writes, but it can fall behind in random reads. This SSD does have a healthy DRAM cache for its size, so that is great to see, and certainly helps. However, the drive is hampered by a low write performance for its capacity compared to other drives. However, this can be fixed if you look toward the 1TB and 2TB drives which have higher write performance.
Otherwise, the SSD performed well for what it is rated at, and we had no problems at all with it. It’s single-sided, which could have very good use scenarios in laptops. The Rocket Control Panel software isn’t that bad and has most features you’d need, and with Acronis you can do a lot with it. With the price currently $89.98 at Amazon, it’s a really good deal for a 500GB SSD if you need something solid, but don’t necessarily need the fastest possible PCIe Gen4 SSD write performance. It will read very fast at PCIe Gen4 speeds and would be a good SSD for gaming.