Sabrent Rocket 2230 SSD review: The perfect Steam Deck companion

Price When Reviewed

$150

Best Prices Today: Sabrent Rocket 2230 (SB-2130-1TB) NVMe SSD

The frequent 2280 (22mm large, 80mm lengthy) NVMe SSD is nice for many issues, however there are some units such because the red-hot Steam Deck that don’t have the room for this type issue. Hence you want an choice akin to Sabrent’s Rocket 2230—a shorty SSD that’s solely 30mm lengthy. The Rocket 2230 is an efficient performer for a HMB (Host Memory Buffer/DRAM-less) design and a sensible choice for such units.

Note that for some purpose, all of the Rocket 2230 SKUs are confusingly numbered 2130, not 2230—e.g., the 1TB drive we examined is the SB-2130-1TB. (Perhaps the 2230 SKUs had been already taken?)

Note: This evaluation is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best SSDs. Go there to study extra about competing merchandise, what to search for in an SSD, and shopping for suggestions.

Sabrent Rocket 2230: Design and options

The Sabrent Rocket 2230’s dimension has already been mentioned, so let’s discuss internals: a Phison e21 controller and 176-layer B47R Micron TLC NAND. As talked about, the Rocket 2230 is an HMB design, which means it makes use of a few of your system DRAM for major caching duties.

HMB can’t match the height efficiency of a design that features onboard DRAM, however it’s fairly darn quick and quite a bit cheaper. Ditching the DRAM additionally makes it far easier to implement an SSD in a shorter type issue. You can after all use a 2230 SSD in any M.2 slot, which could permit for higher cooling and extra room for different stuff. Just saying.

Sabrent (or Phison’s controller for those who want) makes use of parts of the NAND as secondary cache by writing solely a single bit (writing as SLC) to it, transferring it later written as TLC when time permits. This is normal to all trendy SSDs and is one purpose to overbuy on capability. The much less free NAND is on the market, the much less can be utilized as cache.

As for that capability, the Sabrent Rocket 2230 is on the market in $50/256GB, $90/512GB, and $150/1TB capacities. That’s a bit on the excessive aspect for the latter capability, however you’re paying to a point for the smaller dimension. Same factor as with kitchen home equipment—smaller prices extra. Go determine.

I’d really feel remiss if I didn’t give props to Sabrent for my favourite packaging contact: a copper-colored case. This is definitely wrapped inside a retail field, however it makes me smile once I see it. It may be re-deployed as a tablet or components case when you’ve eliminated the drive. It makes you glad you spent a bit extra.

The Rocket 2230 is warrantied for 5 years and 600TBW (terabytes that could be written) per 1TB of capability. About common for the style.

Sabrent Rocket 2230: Performance

I truly examined each the 1TB and 512GB variations of the 2230. Performance was practically similar except the 512GB model operating out of cache through the 450GB write and slowing to round 100MBps writing. This was not a problem with the 1TB drive as you’ll see within the third chart beneath.

First off, the CrystalDiskMark 8 outcomes. They’re fairly honest for a second-tier NVMe drive utilizing Host Memory Buffer. It truly outpaced two HMB rivals in a few exams.

Keep in thoughts that the opposite two drives (Crucial P3 Plus and Teamgroup MP44L) in these charts had 2TB of capability, which allowed them to dedicate extra cache to bigger transfers with out undue computational overhead—i.e., figuring out if they’d run out.

The 1TB capability of the Rocket 2230 had no points through the 450GB write, however the 512GB model slowed to a piddling 100MBps at across the midway mark due to its lack of secondary cache. That’s regular and one purpose to overbuy when it comes to capability with any SSD.

Given that the Rocket 2230 I examined had 1TB much less of NAND to play with than the comparability drives, the above numbers are excellent. Lower tier, however hey, it’s NVMe—it’s nonetheless very quick.

Internal drive exams at present make the most of Windows 11 64-bit operating on an MSI MEG X570/AMD Ryzen 3700X combo with 4 16GB Kingston 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (Nvidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe graphics card, and an ASMedia ASM3242 USB 3.2×2 card. Copy exams make the most of an ImDisk RAM disk utilizing 58GB of the 64GB whole reminiscence.

Each check is carried out on a newly formatted and TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Over time, as a drive fills up, efficiency will lower because of much less NAND for caching and different components.

The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped and of the capability examined. SSD efficiency can fluctuate by capability because of extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND obtainable for secondary caching. Vendors additionally often swap elements, although Sabrent has by no means been amongst those who we’re conscious of.

Should you purchase the Sabrent Rocket 2230 SSD?

The Rocket 2230 is an efficient, if not spectacular performer for an HMB drive. It’s additionally engaging and sports activities a decently lengthy guarantee. I’ve zero purpose to not advocate it as an improve in units that don’t assist 80mm M.2 drives. This could be a stellar SSD to slap into your Steam Deck. But in case your pc does assist longer normal SSDs, you will get the identical capability and efficiency for much less money.