Sabrent Rocket XTRM 1TB Thunderbolt 3 SSD Review

External storage doesn’t need to be small on capacity nor slow in speed, at least not if you don’t want it to be. Today I’m taking a closer look at Sabrent’s Rocket XTRM portable Thunderbolt 3 aluminium SSD with a capacity of 1TB. However, it is available with up to 4TB of capacity should you need a lot of space.

Sabrent Rocket XTRM Thunderbolt 3 SSD

Sabrent isn’t new as such to the storage market, but they are the new force to be reckoned with. They have shown the old hats how it can be done with more capacity and low prices as well as quality. Most of their drives are internal SSDs, but not all of them as shown by today’s review.

The Sabrent Rocket XTRM is a Thunderbolt 3 drive which comes with some advantages and some limitations. The advantages are clear, the speed and performance. This beautiful drive is able to deliver up to 2400MB/s read and write performance in sequential transfers. That is a lot for portable storage and something that will be especially loved by videographers. Those raw videos can take up many GB of space and take a long time to transfer with traditional USB storage drives.

It isn’t just a fast drive, it is also beautiful. And the beauty isn’t just aesthetic, it’s also clever. The casing is made from aluminium which allows for great heat dissipation which prevents thermal throttling or damage to the drive when used for a prolonged period of time. It’s also sturdy and can withstand a lot.

Thunderbolt 3 Advantages and Limitations

As I mentioned above, one of the clear advantages is the performance of the drive. With 2400MB/s, it is fast. Another benefit is that Thunderbolt 3 delivers enough power that there’s no need for an external power supply. That makes the pocket-sized drive even more portable. And with capacities of up to 4TB, you can have a lot in your pants when you carry the Rocket XTRM with you.

The downside is that you need a Thunderbolt 3 host port in order to connect the drive to your system. Most of the modern Apple PCs have it and so do quite a few system motherboards. In the past, Thunderbolt 3 was limited to Intel-based boards and systems, but not anymore. Recently, we have also seen ASRock add it to their X570 AMD series which is something I’ve been waiting for.

Thunderbolt 3 also allows up to 6 devices to be daisy-chained to a single host port, if the first ones have two ports each. The Rocket XTRM only has one, so it will always be the last in the chain.

Feature Highlights

• Superb build quality with heat dissipating design
• Portable and lightweight, and doesn’t require external power
• Delivers up to 2400MB/s sequential read and write performance
• Requires a Thunderbolt 3 host (Not USB compatible, but Sabrent has USB options too)

You can check out the full details of the Rocket XTRM on the official website and the mini-site for the Rocket XTRM family.