The new external Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q models combined 512 GByte to eight TByte large M.2 SSDs and a Thunderbolt 3 controller in a compact aluminum chassis. The data transfer rates of Thunderbolt-3 are up to 2.7 GByte/s, and when using USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 GBit/s) s, 900 MByte/s are achieved after all. The Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q SSDs are connected via four PCI Express 3.0 lanes.
To achieve the maximum speed, a capacity of at least two TByte is required. Due to the small number of memory chips for caching and parallelization, the 1 TByte model “only” reaches a maximum of 2 GByte/s, the 500 GByte model “only” a maximum of 1 GByte/s for writing. In addition, the reading speed of the smallest model is also limited to 2 GByte/s. Theoretically, the built-in SSDs could also reach even higher speeds, but this is somewhat limited by the Thunderbolt 3 protocol.
Housing & heatsink from one casting
The aluminum housing, measuring only 125 x 46 x 15 mm, also serves as passive memory for the Phison controller E12S and the QLC flash memory cells from Micron. Some of the QLC cells are operated as SLC cache to increase the transfer speed.
Delivery is scheduled to start in Germany on 26 July. In the USA the 500 GByte model costs 170 dollars, the 1 TB model 220 dollars, the 2 TB model 360 dollars, the 4 TB model 830 dollars and the 8 TB model 1600 dollars.
