Portable bus-powered SSDs are a rising section of the direct-attached storage market. The ongoing glut in flash reminiscence (and the rising confidence of flash distributors in QLC) has introduced down the worth of those drives. Sabrent, a pc peripherals and equipment producer, has made a reputation for itself within the house by catering to area of interest segments similar to ultra-high capability and compact SSDs. The firm despatched over a bunch of distinctive exterior SSDs to place by way of our strenuous evaluation course of. Today’s evaluation takes a take a look at the 2TB model of the Rocket Nano Rugged.
Introduction
External bus-powered storage units have grown each in storage capability in addition to speeds over the past decade. Thanks to speedy developments in flash expertise (together with the arrival of 3D NAND and NVMe) in addition to quicker host interfaces (similar to Thunderbolt Three and USB 3.x), we now have palm-sized flash-based storage units able to delivering 2GBps+ speeds. Broadly talking, there are 5 distinct efficiency ranges on this market:
- 2GBps+ drives with Thunderbolt 3, utilizing NVMe SSDs
- 2GBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, utilizing NVMe SSDs
- 1GBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 2, utilizing NVMe SSDs
- 500MBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 1 (or, Gen 2, in some circumstances), utilizing SATA SSDs
- Sub-400MBps drives with USB 3.2 Gen 1, utilizing a flash controller with a direct USB interface
The Sabrent Rocket Nano Rugged we’re taking a look at in the present day belongs to the third class within the above listing. It is a compact exterior SSD sporting a M.2 2242 NVMe SSD inside. The casing is all-metal, and the drive is IP67 rated for cover in opposition to mud ingress and water immersion. Thanks to its rubber bumper, additionally it is resilient to unintended drops.
Sabrent packages the Rocket Nano Rugged in a steel case. It comes with a Type-C to Type-A, and a Type-C to Type-C cable. The gallery beneath exhibits further pictures of the packaging and the drive itself.
The evaluation compares the Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB in opposition to the opposite 2TB drives reviewed earlier.
- Sabrent Rocket Nano Rugged 2TB
- Crucial Portable SSD X8 2TB
- OWC Envoy Pro EX USB-C 2TB
- SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD v2 2TB [JHL6540]
A fast overview of the interior capabilities of the storage units is given by CrystalDiskInfo.
| Drive Information |
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Sabrent has a custom-made firmware for the Phison controller, and its conduct can also be completely different from the usual exterior SSD launch (as we will see additional down). TRIM will not be amongst the reported options, however it’s supported.
Testbed Setup and Testing Methodology
Evaluation of DAS models on Windows is completed with a Hades Canyon NUC configured as outlined beneath. We use one of many rear USB Type-C ports enabled by the Alpine Ridge controller for each Thunderbolt Three and USB units.
| AnandTech DAS Testbed Configuration | |
| Motherboard | Intel NUC8i7HVB |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8809G Kaby Lake, 4C/8T, 3.1GHz (as much as 4.2GHz), 14nm+, 8MB L2 |
| Memory | Crucial Technology Ballistix DDR4-2400 SODIMM 2 x 16GB @ 16-16-16-39 |
| OS Drive | Intel Optane SSD 800p SSDPEK1W120GA (118 GB; M.2 Type 2280 PCIe 3.zero x2 NVMe; Optane) |
| SATA Devices | Intel SSD 545s SSDSCKKW512G8 (512 GB; M.2 Type 2280 SATA III; Intel 64L 3D TLC) |
| Chassis | Hades Canyon NUC |
| PSU | Lite-On 230W External Power Brick |
| OS | Windows 10 Enterprise x64 (v1909) |
| Thanks to Intel for the construct parts | |
Our analysis methodology for direct-attached storage units adopts a considered mixture of artificial and real-world workloads. While most DAS models focusing on a selected market section promote related efficiency numbers and likewise meet them for…
