An up-and-coming storage challenger has managed to do what the likes of Samsung and Micron have yet to achieve; launch a consumer 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD.
Sabrent quietly unveiled the Rocket Q (SB-RKTQ-8TB) to the unsuspecting masses, doubling the capacity of its previous chart topper.
This is not the largest solid state drive out there - the ExaDrive DC100 from Nimbus Data holds that crown at 100TB - but it is the largest you can plug into a normal laptop with an M2 slot.
- Check out our list of the best external hard drives on the market
- Here's our choice of the best portable SSDs of 2020
- We've built a list of the best rugged storage solutions around
8TB SSD
The rest of the specification sheet is rather predictable; this is a PCIe Gen3 (rather than Gen4) model, with support for TRIM and SMART commands. It also features advanced wear leveling, bad block management and over-provision features, which should improve the drive's useful shelf life and general performance.
As with other Sabrent drives, this one also comes with a free Acronis True Image software for easy cloning.
Read/write speeds are not yet available, but given the 4TB version delivered 3.4GBps/3GBps on read/write and 0.49/0.68 MIOPS on random 4K QD32 read/write, we’d expect the 8TB model to perform at least as well.
It's worth noting the Rocket Q uses Micron QLC chips, rather than TLC technology, and a Phison E12S controller.
Sabrent is yet to confirm how much the drive will cost, but since the 4TB version was 2.5 times the price of the 2TB model, we expect the 8TB drive to retail for at least $1900, if not more.
- We've created lists of the best NAS drives and best NAS devices around
