Sabrent’s lineup of inner and exterior SSDs is fashionable amongst fans. The main cause is the corporate’s tendency to be among the many first to market with merchandise primarily based on the newest controllers, whereas additionally delivering a wonderful worth proposition. The firm has a long-standing relationship with Phison and adopts its controllers for a lot of of their merchandise. The firm’s 2 GBps-class moveable SSD – the Rocket nano V2 – relies on Phison’s U18 native controller, and has been obtainable available in the market for nicely over a 12 months now.
This overview takes an in depth take a look at the Rocket nano V2 External SSD, together with an evaluation of its efficiency consistency, energy consumption, and thermal profile.
Introduction and Product Impressions
Rapid developments in flash expertise (together with the event of 3D NAND and enhancements in TLC reliability) have been accompanied by the looks of sooner host interfaces for exterior gadgets within the final decade. Together, they’ve contributed to bus-powered direct-attached storage gadgets rising in each storage capability and speeds. The Type-C customary has additionally achieved widespread acceptance within the shopper market. Protocols corresponding to USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 / USB4 and Thunderbolt driving on prime of the Type-C connector have enabled the introduction of palm-sized flash-based storage gadgets able to delivering 2 GBps+ speeds.
One of the first challenges with high-speed storage gadgets is the thermal facet. Bridge-based options with a number of protocol conversion chips are inclined to dissipate extra energy because of the further elements. High-performance moveable SSDs previously have had no possibility however to make use of them – first, with SATA bridges, after which with NVMe bridges. The introduction of native UFD controllers able to hitting 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps from Phison and Silicon Motion has opened up but an alternative choice on this class. The Crucial X6, outfitted with the Phison U17, was reviewed in August 2021 and was one of many first retail merchandise to surpass the SATA speeds barrier by hitting 800 MBps speeds with out utilizing a NVMe bridge. Around the identical time, Silicon Motion’s SM2320 powered the Kingston XS2000 to 2 GBps speeds with out a bridge within the center.
Products primarily based on Silicon Motion’s SM2320 have gained numerous shopper mindshare as a result of they’ve sometimes been capable of hit the interface pace limits for sequential accesses in each the 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps classes. Phison’s U17 and U18 had been launched with barely decrease peak efficiency numbers, and regardless of distributors like Crucial choosing them up for the X6, the merchandise did not make any waves. The finest implementation of Phison’s U17, in our opinion, was seen within the OWC Envoy Pro Mini. The introduction of sooner flash has since allowed moveable SSDs (PSSDs) primarily based on the Phison’s native UFD controllers to hit larger speeds. As a outcome, we’ve got seen an uptick of their adoption. Products such because the PNY EliteX-PRO, Sabrent Rocket Nano v2, and the Corsair EX100U are primarily based on the Phison U18 controller. The EliteX-PRO’s efficiency was nothing to jot down residence about. We reached out to Sabrent for a pattern of the Rocket nano V2 to find out if it may very well be the ‘OWC Envoy Pro Mini equal’ for the U18 controller.
The PNY EliteX-PRO, Corsair EX100U, and the Sabrent Rocket nano V2 all use the identical {hardware} platform – Phison’s U18 controller with 128L 3D TLC NAND from SK hynix. However, the firmware configuration, thermal resolution, and case design are considerably totally different.
The Rocket nano V2 is small at approx. 72mm x 32mm x 14mm, however has a strong really feel to it, because of its aluminum development and 50g weight. The drive has a silicone cowl that lends it safety towards dents and scratches on the metallic phase whereas additionally offering for a…
