Sabrent 2TB Rocket Q4 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD Review

By Nathan Kirsch

Final Thoughts & Conclusions

The Sabrent Rocket Q4 is what we would consider an entry-level consumer drive for the PCIe Gen4 SSD market. In CrystalDiskMark we managed to hit 4,984 MB/s read and 3,504 MB/s write speeds on our 2TB sample. These are pretty impressive speeds for a Gen4 controller paired with QLC NAND Flash and just goes to show how far QLC has come along. It was pretty impressive seeing the Rocket Q4 near the top of the chart in a good number of benchmarks.

The Rocket Q4 2TB model that we tested has a 400 TBW endurance rating and a 5-year warranty. Not the highest endurance rating around, but the 5-year warranty period is solid and this drive should last years in a normal desktop PC or laptop.Sabrent 2TB Rocket Q4 NVMe PCIe Gen4 SSD

When it comes to pricing the Sabrent Rocket Q4 2TB is up on Amazon for $319.99 shipped and the 1TB model is $161.11 shipped. That puts these two capacities at $0.16 per GB and that is okay. It would be nice to see the Rocket Q4 coming in a little lower than this, but right now Micron 96-Layer QLC NAND Flash pretty much is the best QLC NAND around and doesn’t have much competition. Without having rivals putting downward pressure on QLC NAND pricing the cost savings of QLC NAND Flash is not really being felt by consumers just yet.

Last week we reviewed the XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite that features the SMI SM2267 Gen4 controller with Micron 96-Layer TLC memory. You can find those drives in 1TB and 2TB capacities for $139.99 and $279.99, respectively. That seems like the main competitor for the Sabrent Rocket Q4 at this point in time. When looking back at the performance results, the Sabrent Rocket Q4 and XPG GAMMIX S50 Lite traded blows in many of the benchmarks that we ran.

Both drives perform better than most Gen3 drives and that is what will matter to many shoppers. AMD has new Zen 3 Ryzen based processors coming out soon and many will be building Gen4 platforms and looking for Gen4 SSDs to go with their new build. The Rocket Q4 from Sabrent came to market just in time to be there for those buyers! It also just happens to be one of the few Gen4 drives on the market that is widely available in 2TB and 4TB capacities.

Legit Bottom Line: The Sabrent Rocket Q4 shows that you can still have great performance on an SSD that is running QLC NAND Flash!