Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Bus-Saturating Performance in Style

Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus shatters write records and undercuts Samsung and WD pricing

Reviews
By Sean Webster
last updated
Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 4TB
Editor's Choice
(Image: © Tom's Hardware)

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Our overall impressions of Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus are positive. Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus is positioned very well at current pricing for the performance it brings to the table, especially that massive write speed potential at 2TB, assuming it is adequately cooled. If you regularly write more than 300GB of data at once, which certainly isn't common, you'll want to ensure that you have a robust cooling solution for the 2TB drive. However, for most users with standard workloads, the 2TB model should be your pick if you want the best performance. While it will set you back a cool $400, it is the fastest of the two capacities we’ve tested so far.

Sequential performance is a strong suit of the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, and in that regard, it is one of the fastest M.2 NVMe SSDs we have on hand, as long as the workload falls within the cache. Most gamers and prosumers with normal workloads won't encounter any issues. 

Samsung’s 980 Pro and WD Black SN850 make for tough competition, though. Both definitely offer a bit more oomph in responsiveness over the Rocket 4 Plus with faster random read performance, edging out ahead of the Rocket 4 Plus in key application tests. For gaming, it will still be hard to notice a difference between these three, however. 

Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

When it comes to endurance and warranty, the Rocket 4 Plus leaves us with mixed thoughts. Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus offers a bit higher endurance than the Samsung and WD, yet the Rocket 4 Plus carries half the endurance rating of the last-gen Rocket NVMe 4.0 at each capacity. And we're still are not fans of having to register our SSD for a full five-year warranty: Without registration, you get just a measly one-year warranty out of the box.

All things considered, Sabrent’s Rocket 4 Plus is a good value for those wanting to save a few bucks on their storage over WD’s or Samsung’s best offerings. Undercutting Samsung’s 980 Pro and WD’s Black SN850 by $30 at 1TB and the Black SN850 by $50 at 2TB, it's priced right – it's a good choice if you need high-capacity PCIe 4.0x4 bus-saturating storage now.

While many Samsung fans are eagerly waiting to hear word on when the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro will ship, Sabrent’s 2TB Rocket 4 Plus is available today, and there is a strong promise of a 4TB model coming soon. Bear in mind that Samsung’s SSDs come with an optional AES 256-bit full disk encryption support, a feature both the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and WD Black SN850 lack. For those who need security, Samsung’s 980 Pro may be worth the wait. 

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Sean Webster
Sean Webster
Storage Reviewer

Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom’s Hardware US, covering storage hardware.

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Remember when Samsung drives were the fastest AND the cheapest? 2021 and still well above the $100/TB level...
    Reply
  • Chris Fetters
    Spends much of the review (& most of the conclusion) talking about how the 2TB model is able to get significantly more performance out of the new Phison E18 controller and as such, THAT'S the one you should buy... to then go and EXCLUSIVELY only show benchmark results of the 1TB drive in the review itself... -_- ... I am not amused.
    Reply
  • seanwebster
    Chris Fetters said:
    Spends much of the review (& most of the conclusion) talking about how the 2TB model is able to get significantly more performance out of the new Phison E18 controller and as such, THAT'S the one you should buy... to then go and EXCLUSIVELY only show benchmark results of the 1TB drive in the review itself... -_- ... I am not amused.
    I reviewed both capacities at once, but the 2TB results will show in an update soon, painting a better picture.
    Reply
  • prolfe
    seanwebster said:
    I reviewed both capacities at once, but the 2TB results will show in an update soon, painting a better picture.
    Sean,
    It sounds like you're saying you did all the work required to make a complete review, but decided to hold some back and get a second article out of it for those sweet sweet clicks. I'm a longtime toms reader and that won't change anytime soon. Also note that I didn't accuse you but rather said it sounds like a certain thing. If I'm correct it does sound a little shady. You didn't call the article "Rocket 4 Plus 1 TB Review" and didn't mention anywhere in the article that there was more data for the 2 TB coming. Also, it's not like the 2TB isn't out yet, so you can't say you're holding it back til the 2 TB comes out. I appreciate your work and thank you for writing this article. Please take the comment in the spirit it is given: as constructive criticism of a potential business practice that I personally find distasteful. I hope you'll consider refraining from this in the future.
    Reply
  • seanwebster
    prolfe said:
    Sean,
    It sounds like you're saying you did all the work required to make a complete review, but decided to hold some back and get a second article out of it for those sweet sweet clicks. I'm a longtime toms reader and that won't change anytime soon. Also note that I didn't accuse you but rather said it sounds like a certain thing. If I'm correct it does sound a little shady. You didn't call the article "Rocket 4 Plus 1 TB Review" and didn't mention anywhere in the article that there was more data for the 2 TB coming. Also, it's not like the 2TB isn't out yet, so you can't say you're holding it back til the 2 TB comes out. I appreciate your work and thank you for writing this article. Please take the comment in the spirit it is given: as constructive criticism of a potential business practice that I personally find distasteful. I hope you'll consider refraining from this in the future.
    I typically review one capacity at a time and then release another capacity at a later date because it takes longer to test. The 2TB's results were mostly done when I wrapped up the review, but I was having a little trouble with something, hence the delay. But, since the 2TB results will be published soon, and again, I already had the majority of my data, I wrote the conclusion based on both capacities from the getgo.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    Not liking the endurance drop from E16 drives at 1TB that do 1,800 TBW to now 700TBW.

    also the E16 Corsair MP600 has AES 256-bit encryption.

    Waiting for your review of the Corsair Core and Pro models.
    Reply
  • prolfe
    seanwebster said:
    I typically review one capacity at a time and then release another capacity at a later date because it takes longer to test. The 2TB's results were mostly done when I wrapped up the review, but I was having a little trouble with something, hence the delay. But, since the 2TB results will be published soon, and again, I already had the majority of my data, I wrote the conclusion based on both capacities from the getgo.
    Thanks for the explanation and glad to hear it was something completely understandable. You keep making good articles and I'll keep reading!
    Reply
  • RedCat888 (HIGUYS9090)
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Remember when Samsung drives were the fastest AND the cheapest? 2021 and still well above the $100/TB level...

    I mean you can get a 1TB NVME for $100, and even a 1TB sata drive for 80-90 bucks, it's just that the increase in speed makes it more expensive
    Reply
  • thdm
    Nice review update. I'd been looking at the 2TB Rocket 4 plus for a little while.

    My interest in this SSD was at least in part because I was planning to run it in a laptop (MacBook Pro 2015) and being PCIe 3.0 was hoping that even though it's overkill and has more cores driving high performance for PCIe 4.0, that being a 12nm finfet design fabbed at TSMC that it might pull off nicely reduced overall power than other solutions for PCIe3.0.

    The Sabrent site seems to indicate one needs a heatsink if running with a PCIe4.0 board, implying PCIe3.0 does/might not?

    Any chance you can run some comparisons on PCIe3.0 with power consumption numbers? One would hope that it beats at least well proven PCIe3.0 designs on 28nm
    Reply
  • escksu
    Chris Fetters said:
    Spends much of the review (& most of the conclusion) talking about how the 2TB model is able to get significantly more performance out of the new Phison E18 controller and as such, THAT'S the one you should buy... to then go and EXCLUSIVELY only show benchmark results of the 1TB drive in the review itself... -_- ... I am not amused.

    IMHO, don't go too crazy over benchmarks. Unless you have more than 1 drive in your system, you will only be either transferring from/to RAM or another partition within the same drive.

    You won't find windows or your apps loading much faster than even PCIE 3.0 drive (itself isn't really alot faster than SATA in daily usage cases.).
    Reply