expert evaluation
Strong Points
- Short (30mm length), 2230 form factor
- very good daily performance
- Attractive label and packaging
Cons
- A little expensive for its capacity
- Somewhat low TBW rating
our verdict
Sabrent’s Rocket 2230 is a great upgrade for devices and laptops that don’t fit a long 2280, such as Valve’s Steam Deck. Day-to-day performance is pretty much on par with the DRAM-free design, and I like the colors too.
A common 2280 (22mm wide, 80mm long) NVMe SSD is fine in most cases, but some devices, such as extremely hot Steam decks, can’t handle this form factor. So you need an option like Sabrent’s Rocket 2230 (a short SSD with a length of only 30 mm). The Rocket 2230 exhibits excellent performance of HMB (Host Memory Buffer/DRAM-less) design and is suitable for such devices.
Note that for some reason all Rocket 2230 SKUs are numbered 2130 instead of 2230. For example, his 1TB drive I tested is SB-2130-1TB. (Maybe the 2230 SKU is already in use?)
Note: This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best SSDs. Head over there to learn more about the competition, what to look for in an SSD, and buying recommendations.
Sabrent Rocket 2230: Design and Features
We’ve already talked about the size of the Sabrent Rocket 2230, so let’s talk under the hood. Phison e21 controller and 176 layers of B47R Micron TLC NAND. As mentioned above, the Rocket 2230 is an HMB design. In other words, it uses part of the system DRAM for the role of primary cache.
HMBs don’t match the peak performance of designs with onboard DRAM, but they are significantly faster and much cheaper. Eliminating DRAM also makes it much easier to implement SSDs in shorter form factors. Of course, you can use a 2230 SSD in any M.2 slot. This could result in better cooling and more space for other things. just say
Sabrent (or Phison’s controller, if desired) uses part of the NAND as a secondary cache, writing only one bit (written as SLC) and later as TLC as time permits. This is standard with all modern SSDs and is one reason to overbuy capacity. The less free NAND you have, the less space you have available for cache.
In terms of capacities, the Sabrent Rocket 2230 is available in capacities of $50/256GB, $90/512GB, and $150/1TB. It’s a little more expensive in the latter capacity, but the smaller size comes at a cost. Go to Figure.
I would be remiss if I didn’t give props to Sabrent’s favorite packaging touch, the copper-colored case. This is actually in the product box, but when you look at it, you will grin. Once the drive is removed, the pill or parts he can redeploy as a case. I’m glad I used it a little more.
The Rocket 2230 is backed by a 5-year warranty with 600TBW (Terabytes Writable) per TB capacity guaranteed. Average for the genre.
Sabrent Rocket 2230: Performance
I actually tested both the 1TB and 512GB versions of the 2230. Performance was about the same, except the 512GB version ran out of cache while writing 450GB, slowing write speeds down to about 100MBps. As you can see in the 3rd graph below, this was not an issue with the 1 TB drive.
First, the CrystalDiskMark 8 results. Pretty fair for a second layer NVMe drive that uses a host memory buffer. In some tests, it actually outperformed two HMB rivals.
The other two drives in these graphs (Crucial P3 Plus and Teamgroup MP44L) have 2 TB of capacity, allowing more cache to be used without excessive computational overhead (i.e. determining if you’re running out). Note that it could have been allocated exclusively for large transfers.
The Rocket 2230’s 1TB capacity was fine during 450GB writes, but the 512GB version slowed to a meager 100MBps around the midpoint due to the lack of secondary cache. This is normal and one of the reasons why we overbuy SSD capacity.
Considering the Rocket 2230 I tested uses 1 TB less NAND than the comparison drive, the numbers above are pretty good. Lower tier, but this is NVMe. Still very fast.
Internal drive testing currently uses Windows 11 64-bit running on an MSI MEG X570/AMD Ryzen 3700X combo with four 16GB Kingston 2666MHz DDR4 modules, a Zotac (Nvidia) GT 710 1GB x2 PCIe graphics card, and I am using ASMedia ASM3242 USB 3.2×2. card. The copy test uses an ImDisk RAM disk that uses 58 GB out of a total of 64 GB of memory.
Each test is run with a freshly formatted and trimmed drive for optimal results. As the drive fills up over time, performance degrades due to factors such as his NAND for caching diminishing.
Performance numbers shown apply only to drives shipped and capacity tested. SSD performance may vary by capacity due to more or less shotgun read/write chips and the amount of NAND available for secondary cache. Vendors sometimes swap components too, but Sabrent isn’t one we’re aware of.
Should I buy the Sabrent Rocket 2230 SSD?
The Rocket 2230 performs well, if not spectacularly, for an HMB drive. It’s also attractive and has a decent long-term warranty. There is no reason not to recommend the 80mm M.2 drive as an upgrade for devices that don’t support it. This is a great SSD to incorporate into your Steam deck. However, if your computer supports longer standard SSDs, you can get the same capacity and performance for less cash.
