Review on Sabrent Rocket Internal Performance SB ROCKET 1TB by Rick Pickering

EDIT: Although my original rating was 4 stars, I found it necessary to update it to 5 stars after receiving and installing the heatsink. Before installing the heatsink, my Rocket drive reached 78C during the test. After installing a $7 radiator, the max temperature is now between 50-50! What a huge difference. And it doesn't seem to throttle anymore (see third photo). So I'll leave it at my first review, but keep in mind that adding a heatsink will solve most of these issues. UPDATE (February 2020) Some like the heat. I just wanted to give an update for a year. So far, so good. After installing the radiator, there were no problems with throttling. Under heavy workloads (testing, etc.) the drive temperature rarely exceeded 55C and I still get consistent maximum read speeds of over 3500MB/s and write speeds of over 2000MB/s. If you see temperatures in this range or even higher, don't panic. I've read that operating temperatures of 60-70°C are normal for NVMe drives under heavy loads. My normal idle temp is around 25-30C. These drives get pretty hot so this isn't a problem unless you're consistently seeing 60-70 degrees at idle or under light workload conditions. Overall I still think this is a great NVMe drive and worth the price. My only concern is that CrystalDisk Info no longer recognizes the drive. However, it shows up fine in HWinfo and passes the SMART test, but I'll update if anything changes. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL REVIEW: If you feel the need for digital speed and are on a budget this will help, but with some caveats.PROS: -Very affordable -Can reach very high speeds -Comes with a five year warranty -Good customer service chokes -Packaging is very light; Disc only, no screws or manuals. SUMMARY: While it sometimes appears to meet the speed spec, it's very inconsistent. During sequential read/write tests, my drive's temperature reached around 80°C. The problem with high rates (longevity aside) is that they start to choke, which slows down the transfer rate. If you look at the attached image, the drive reached 78C during the test. It's too hot. Therefore, the sequential write speed was only 628 MB/s, but should be around 2 KB. However, as far as actual performance goes, it seems to perform well and I haven't noticed any lags when using it with some of the Steam games I have on the drive. I really wanted to like this CD. I think Sabrent is a good company and their tech support tried to help me understand why I'm having so many speed and temperature issues they deserve credit for that. And throttling/overheating issues can be somewhat solved with a heatsink. But do not remove the sticker. At least that's what Sabrent told me. As for the packaging. Sabrent, you need to improve your game! There are no instructions, stickers, warranty cards or even screws in the box. Five year guarantee, but how do you know that? BTW: go to their website to register the drive and it has warranty information. In terms of value, it's really hard to beat the price ($79 in early 2019) for a 512GB NVMe 3x4 drive. Throttling issues are not too noticeable when using apps/games. What I mean is that even if it lowers the sequential speed to 1000MB/s, it's still faster than a SATA SSD. Finally, while high temperatures are an issue, I can confidently give it four stars because I have a five-year warranty, which is probably the longest warranty I've ever had on a storage device.