Sabrent SSDs - thoughts/opinions

[maflynn]

Anyone use or are familiar with Sabrent?

Their 1TB SSD is 150 and their 2TB is 270, I'm eyeballing the 2TB drive. Googling it, seems to show positive feedback, though it uses 4k sectors instead of 512 so cloning may be problematic.

As a comparison, the Samsung 970 Evo is priced at 630 for 2TB - quite a big price difference.

 

[ruslan120]

It's decent.

Speed
I don't have benchmarks on hand but iirc it's around the speed of Apple's SSD. Plugged the 256GB into a parent's computer and it's been reliable as a boot drive.

Enclosure + issues
Enclosure gives me no issues being constantly plugged into an iMac. It does* have issues and freezes on transfers that take longer than 10 seconds with a base model 13" MBP.
This is with a 2TB Samsung 970 plugged into it. As a result, currently exploring alternatives.

Source: I bought a 256GB model for the enclosure (essentially getting the SSD for $20-$30).

 

[maflynn]

I bit the bullet and picked up the 2TB version on Amazon and here's a few thoughts.

It comes with Acronis True Image (need to download it), and that allows you to clone the internal drive. I also picked up a NVME case so that I could plug the new drive into the usb and clone the internal drive.

The SSD does come in 4k sectors as opposed to 512, so that prevents cloning, but sabrent allows you to change it via conversion tool and it will 512e. So in essence it runs though an emulator to permit compatibility.

Once I enabled that, and ran the cloning process, it went fast and problem free. One downside is that there does seem to be a performance hit

Sabrent

Samsung

So the bottom line is do I live with 512e and running slower, though I'll probably not really notice the performance hit, or focus on the future and stick with 4096 sector sizes.. I'm not sure if I have the intestional fortitude to wipe the drive and start over but it is irking me a bit

 

[Queen6]

If your planning to keep the notebook, starting from scratch makes sense, that's what I would do 🙂

Q-6

 

[lowendlinux]

This drive has been popular in the MBP upgrade threads..

I've had a 1TB drive sitting my Amazon cart for more than a few months.

 

[maflynn]

Food for thought:

I won't spoil the results, but I do find it kind of funny where I'm looking at two drives and one being a scosh slower.

 

[maflynn]

Here's where things stand if anyone cares

I reached out to Sabrent's customer support and we went back and forth on some details, but nothing stuck out. He did say that while it doesn't appear to be defective, and the performance isn't that bad, its not ideal. He did mention that since I'm in the return window to return it.

I switched the sector size back to 4096 to see if that was indeed the cause and sadly, it was not. I ordered a second Sabrent Rocket 2TB drive and not surprising, its performance is about that of the first. My assumption is that Sabrent is using slower components, and some reviews on Amazon mention this as well.

Still for 270 its much more affordable then other 2TB drives. For example, Samsung's 970 2TB drive is in the 600 dollar range. Since 2TB fits my needs more then the performance, I'll stick with it.

 

[Strelok]

The real question is in what situation will you actually notice it being slower? Those Samsung drives are only faster in very specific workloads.

 

[Queen6]

Only time I really see any advantage is when I reimage the system (OS), even then for data drives I don't overly worry about the speed as long as the drive keeps up with what I'm doing. Like a lot in life you pay a great deal more to attain that last 10%. CPU's being a good example i5 versus i7 etc.

To me the Sabrent R&W speeds are more than adequate. Below is my primary notebooks Samsung NVMe SSD (OS drive) performance and I don't have an issue with it for my needs.

PM961

Next notebook I'd prefer dual M.2 slots, as opposed to M.2 & 2.5" SATA bay. A smaller and faster SSD for the OS and a slower, however larger for data. The Sabrent or one of the Intel SSD's would be solid options.

There is frequently variation in component's, with them being graded accordingly. Manufacturers will also source from varying sources, basically the component is guaranteed to operate within specified parameters, equally some can and do exceed. Hence the "silicon lottery" as is often quoted, sometimes you get lucky.

CPU in this notebook is a good example. although a base 8750H 2.2GHz 8th Gen i7 it's simply not worth considering any upgrade right now as it already pushes 3100CB under Cinebench R20, with an undervolt of -240mV/-140mV and will go deeper at -240mV/-180mV.

TLDR if it feels slow under normal use replace it, if not tune out to the sales & marketing 🙂

Q-6

 

[maflynn]

The real question is in what situation will you actually notice it being slower?

Yeah that's basically it. I'm ok with the performance though I was a bit bummed that the reviews showed one result and I had a different (slower). Yet when the dust settles I needed storage not speed

 

[splifingate]

Yeah that's basically it. I'm ok with the performance though I was a bit bummed that the reviews showed one result and I had a different (slower). Yet when the dust settles I needed storage not speed

Got two 1TB Sabrent gumsticks last Fall for USD 109/each.

I put one in my mid-2015 MBP 13" (PCIe-2/x4), and the storage is phenomenal.

Likewise, I put the other in my 2012 MP (PCIe-2/x4), and (again) the storage is phenomenal.

What I have noticed wrt the MBP, is that the battery life has been significantly-reduced ("anecdotal", lacking objective data), and the thermals (after a cold boot) are +10/15C higher than stock.

The MP has no comparable thermal considerations, and the Sabrent is as fast (and consistent) as all the SATA SSD's I use (have used).

Still, the benefits of double the storage is (of course) *hooge*

Regards, splifingate