Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

EDIT: While my original review was 4 stars, I felt it necessary to bump it up to 5 stars after receiving and installing a heat sink. Before installing the heat sink, my Rocket drive would reach temperatures in excess of 78 C during benchmarks. After I installed a $7 heat sink, the temps now max out in the mid-to high 50s! What a huge difference. And, it no longer seems to be throttling (see third photo). So, I'll leave my original review in place, but keep in mind that adding a heat sink will relieve most of these issues. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ UPDATE (Feb. 2020) Some like it hot ... I just wanted to give a one-year update. So far, so good. Since installing the heat sink, I've not seen any throttling issues. Under heavy stress (benchmarking, etc.), the drive rarely gets above 55C, and I'm still getting consistent top read speeds of over 3500 MB/s and write speeds over 2K MB/s. If you're seeing temperatures in this range, or even higher, don't be alarmed. I've read that operating temperatures of 60-70C are normal for NVMe drives under heavy workloads. My normal/idle temps are around 25-30C. These drives run hot, so it's not a problem unless you are consistently seeing 60-70 degrees during idle or low workload conditions. Overall, I still think it's a great NVMe drive and well worth the price. The only concern I have is that CrystalDisk Info no longer recognizes the drive. It does, however, show up fine in HWinfo and passes SMART testing, but I'll update if that changes. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ ORIGINAL REVIEW: If you feel the need for digital speed and you're on a budget, this will do the trick, but with some caveats. PROS: -Very affordable -Can reach very fast speeds -Comes with five-year warranty -Good customer support CONS: -Gets very hot and throttles -Packaging is very light; drive only, no screws or manuals SUMMARY: While it does seem to hold up to spec on its speeds occasionally, it's very inconsistent. While running sequential read/write tests, my drive hit temperatures of near 80C. The problem with the high temps (other than longevity) is that it seems to begin throttling, which reduces the transfer rate. If you take a look at the attached image, the drive hit 78C during testing. That is way too hot. Consequently, the sequential write speed was only 628MB/s, but should've been near 2K. As far as real-world performance, however, it seems to work OK, and I haven't noticed any freezes while using it with some Steam games I have on the drive. I've really wanted to like this drive. I think Sabrent is a good company, and their tech support tried to help me understand why I was having so many issues with speed and temperatures, so they deserve some credit for that. And, the throttling/overheating issues can be helped somewhat with a heat sink. But, don't remove the sticker ... at least that's what Sabrent told me. As for packaging ... Sabrent, you need to step up your game! There are no manuals, stickers, warranty cards or even screws in the box. There is a five-year warranty, but how would anyone know? BTW: Go to their website to register the drive, and the warranty information is there. As for value, it is really hard to beat the price ($79 in early 2019) for a 512GB 3x4 NVMe drive. The throttling issues are not too noticeable while using applications/games. I mean, even if it throttles down to 1,000MB/s sequential speeds, it's still faster than a SATA SSD. And finally, while the high temperatures are a concern, I feel confident in granting four stars since I have a five-year warranty, which is probably the longest warranty I've ever had for a storage device.