Sabrent 2TB Rocket Q4 (QLC) NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 SSD (SB-RKTQ4-2TB) A$279.15 / NZ$307 Shipped @ Amazon AU

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Nil Einne on 01/03/2022 - 13:04 amazon.com.au (135 clicks)
Last edited 01/03/2022 - 20:52

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Saw the Sabrent 2TB Rocket Q4 (QLC) NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD Maximum Performance Solid State Drive R/W 4800/3600 MB/s (SB-RKTQ4-2TB) sold by Amazon Australia at a low price. Eligible for free shipping so comes to AU$279.15 after GST adjustments or NZ$307 (mid market + ~2.5%). I think it's the cheapest price I've a generation 4 SSD easily available to New Zealand. (There have been lower prices in Australia but not on Amazon.)

Since it's a gen 4 it will work on a PS5. It probably won't meet the minimum recommended read speed but so far that isn't an issue. Besides PS5, perhaps this is still of interest since it's cheap and a decent drive. It's cheaper in fact than any local NVMe although you can get cheaper gen 3 QLC drives on Amazon Australia. Note it has no heatsink as that variant is over $100 more, so for a PS5 or another device without a heatsink/heatspreader you may want to consider one from AliExpress or whatever.

Note although a generation 4 SSD, this has QLC NAND (Micron's 96L) so has all the QLC disadvantages. It uses Phison's E16 so does have DRAM cache. Personally I don't feel this SSD worth it for most people, better to spend the $45 or so more to get the 2TB 970 EVO Plus which is one of the best TLC generation 3 SSDs. Sequential speeds only tend to give you a small benefit for most purposes compared to 4k random etc. So with the QLC + weak Phison E16 controller, even within the SLC cache region, you tend to get better performance with a good gen 3 drive in real world use. And with a QLC, you really don't want to be writing before the SLC cache has recovered.

It also has a lowish warrantied 0.1 DWPD or 450TB over 5 years although IMO that tends to be overblown. For most consumer purposes. at that level you're unlikely to ever reach it.

Note that the Corsair MP600 Core is basically the same drive but with maybe a different heatsink so you can basically interchange the two in reviews. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B27_j9NDPU3cNlj2HKcr…

Some reviews:

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/sabrent-rocket-q4-2-tb/

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16577/qlc-pcie-40
(look at the MP600 Core not the Sabrent Q4 since that's a 4TB and 4TBs can perform different due to more dies)

https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/9725/corsair-mp600-core-2t…

Unfortunately none of these have the 2TB 970 Evo Plus. Some do have he P31 which is also a generation 3 SSD but generally considered to have slightly better performance, and also only 1TB variant.

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  Jaqqour on 01/03/2022 - 20:06

  Note that the heatsink it ships with wont fit in a PS5 (product page Q+A) so you would need to install a different heatsink for that usage.

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    Nil Einne on 01/03/2022 - 20:49

    I've updated the description to mention this but for clarity, this doesn't ship with a heatsink. Vagaries of special pricing means heatsink one is over $100 more so definitely not worth it. https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08D2YQTF1 If you need one, may want to look at AliExpress or if urgent could find something on Amazon Australia. Thermal throttling means it should be safe without a heatspreader or heatsink but may have lower performance or lifespan.

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  DilmahsTeaParty on 01/03/2022 - 21:12

  Don't know much about storage devices but I was literally looking at this one Amazon Au last week. But probably not worth it for a long term drive is it?

  • 

    Nil Einne on 02/03/2022 - 16:28

    +1

    Deal has ended but although I recommended the 970 EVO Plus over this, it's still an SSD and IMO would be fine long term for most people. You much more likely to notice performance slowdowns if you're writing too much and there are other disadvantages, enough to make the ~AU$33/15% extra worth it but you're probably not going to be moaning about how terrible your SSD is either. I think most people aren't even going to find themselves saying dang I wish I'd gotten that 970 EVO Plus well at least as a justified sentiment. It's more a case that you'll experience the benefit enough to make it worth it.

    People tend to compare QLCs to HDs when they start to write to QLC which IMO tends to be misleading. It's true some of the low capacity QLC ones did have extremely slow sustained write i.e. sequential write performance when past the SLC cache, slower than HDs in fact. And even this is about HD level (250 MB/s). However they still tend to be far better at random writes or mixed read/writes than HDs, and pure reads are mostly fine. And random performance is important, there's a reason people were nuts about SSDs even when they weren't actually much better than HDs in sequential performance. A better comparison is with SATA SSDs. The QLC story can also be confused by DRAM cache as many QLC dries lack DRAM although not the 660p which was the first mainstream QLC.

    I wouldn't worry about TBW unless you're very, very far outside the average consumer workload. You shouldn't leave it disconnected for long periods of time i.e. for months. QLC is probably worse for that but frankly it's always a bad idea to leave a SSD disconnected for long periods of time.

    Note I'm also mostly thinking of a general use case like a OS/boot drive or general work. If it's exclusively a game drive where you tend to just write once every so often and then it's almost all reading it may be this would be better than a 970 EVO Plus especially on a gen 4 system, or at least not worth the extra.

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      DilmahsTeaParty on 02/03/2022 - 17:17

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Next time a deal like this comes around I'll have a bit more information. My system isnt Gen4 so I wouldnt even been able to fully utilize this drive. But I appreciate you taking the time to explain!

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  felixfurtak on 02/03/2022 - 04:12

  As per description above, 2TB 970 EVO Plus is arguably a better deal. In stock at Amazon for AU$299.

  https://www.amazon.com.au/Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-SSD/dp/B07MFZ…

  • 

    Nil Einne on 02/03/2022 - 15:28

    You can actually get it https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B07MLJD32L for AU$295.

    This is the MZ-V7S2T0BW rather than the MZ-V7S2T0B/AM but both are 2TB 970 EVO Plus¹ even if the description is less clear on Amazon. Note the default buying option for MZ-V7S2T0BW may be Harris Technology for $292.50, I don't recommend this since warranty issues are already going to be complicated but even worse when dealing with a third party seller.

    Instead look for Amazon AU under the "Other Sellers on Amazon" or alternatively click on the "New (3) from $292.50" and chose Amazon AU. W seems to go out of stock quite often, in fact currently only 1 is available. Price difference between AM and W is so small not it doesn't matter much, but it used to be more so especially worth keeping an eye on both if you aren't buying them right now. If W goes out of stock might as well just buy AM at this price difference.

    ---

    1. Surprisingly although Samsung have had similar model number schemes for a while, I never found a decent answer what the differences between these models are. Mostly just some often confused commentary. Logic would suggest AM is probably the North American variant and W is the world variant. This is also supported by the Samsung official store selling W in NZ https://www.samsung.com/nz/memory-storage/nvme-ssd/970-evo-p… , Australia https://www.samsung.com/au/memory-storage/nvme-ssd/970-evo-p… , UK https://www.samsung.com/uk/memory-storage/nvme-ssd/970-evo-p… and elsewhere; while selling AM in US https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/solid-st… and Canada https://www.samsung.com/ca/memory-storage/nvme-ssd/970-evo-p… . There's no reason to think there's any difference in the drives, instead just packaging etc. ↩

  • 

    Nil Einne on 02/03/2022 - 15:35

    BTW, if you're lucky enough to have access to the Samsung EPP store (staff at a business partner), I've heard you can get the 2TB EVO Plus at NZ$350. This is a little more than you're probably going to pay from Amazon AU but so close it seems a far better choice since you shouldn't have any problems with warranty. Unfortunately Samsung Education isn't as generous, NZ$400 which I don't feel is worth it just for reduced warranty hassles. Last month it was NZ$370 at PB Tech but I also feel that was maybe not worth it. No idea what price is for those who access EPP via their insurance.

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  FiveOneFive on 02/03/2022 - 13:35

  Sorry whats the TLDR on all these new NVME's - looking at upgrading my 1TB SN550. Seems like its now fraught with issues buying?

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    Nil Einne on 02/03/2022 - 15:47

    Upgrading I assume you mean for more capacity? If so I recommend you just get a 2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus from Amazon Australia or Samsung EPP if you have access. See links in the thread above. You can stop reading if you don't want more complexity :-)

    Don't worry too much about those moaning about controller & NAND changes with the 970 EVO Plus, these are IMO overblown especially for the 2TB for reasons which are probably TL;DR. I'll just say 2TB you may not even get one with different controller & NAND but if you do, it's probably better.

    Cheapest 2TB at the moment available to NZ is I think the Kingston NV1 https://www.amazon.com.au/Kingston-NVMe-PCIe-2000-2280/dp/B0… but DRAMless and probably QLC, I really don't recommend it. If you want to go to 4TB I have no idea, these tend to be expensive and also not great drives since they often need to use QLC for that capacity.

    In Australia and US, I've seen some high end PCIe gen 4 drives for about 20% more than the 970 EVO Plus but most consumers aren't going to notice the difference and most of these aren't going to be available to NZ. Note if your system doesn't support gen 4, there's little reason to get a gen 4 SSD. (It might still be better in some ways, but the advantages are likely to be significantly reduced.)

    • 

      FiveOneFive on 05/03/2022 - 12:32

      Hey
      How about this one?
      https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Green-SN350-Internal/…

      I note its an SN350 rather than SN550

      Edit: with conversion etc its almost the same price

      • 

        Nil Einne on 05/03/2022 - 19:35

        No DRAM and QLC it doesn't seem a great but to me. I'd personally spend the extra for a 970 EVO Plus. Admittedly both the world and US models are out of stock on Amazon Australia (sold by) at the moment but I expect will come back in stock within 2 weeks.

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  Nil Einne on 02/03/2022 - 15:02

  Price has gone up on Amazon by about AU$50 before GST adjustment. so it's no longer a good deal. You can still get it for ~AU$18 before GST adjustments (high price + no free shipping) from a third party seller but that also doesn't seem a great deal so I've marked this as expired