Sabrent has announced that their new line of m.2 2230 form factor SSD’s are available for purchase just in time for your hard earned holiday gift cards!
If you aren’t familiar with the 2230 form factor, this is the tiny card that’s used in small form factor products like Mini Desktops, and most importantly, the Steam Deck.
The new drives should be shipping by the end of January, and they are available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage capacities. Are you looking to get an upgrade for one of your devices? Straight from Sabrent’s press release:
The Sabrent Rocket 2230 blends new technology with a small form factor to provide something special for your devices. Whether you own a Steam Deck, a Microsoft Surface, an ultrabook, NUC, or even a compact HTPC, this drive can accelerate your experience without excess heat or power draw. It’s a convenient solution with a retail warranty so you don’t have to worry about taking a chance on a second-hand OEM SSD.
The Rocket 2230 launches at up to 1TB in a single-sided form factor so that it’s compatible with all of your devices while still offering plenty of space. Performance is a rush, too, with the Rocket 2230 employing a new Gen4 NVMe SSD controller that can reach speeds up to 5GBps and push up to 800,000 IOPS. The flash is also designed to run cool and efficiently so your devices don’t overheat. Don’t rely on cheap, slow microSD cards or limited internal storage.
Good Things Come in Small Packages
The Rocket 2230 fits just about anywhere. Need to upgrade your Steam Deck, Microsoft Surface, or other devices where space is limited? We have you covered. Don’t risk buying a pulled OEM drive from a shady site – get a brand-new retail SSD designed to make your life easier. It also works on many longer slots, so it will always be useful, plus it might be the right fit for your HTPC or smaller system.
David Versus Goliath
Don’t let the small size fool you: the Rocket 2230 is one very fast drive. It offers Gen4 NVMe performance in a tiny form factor. Hit up to 5GBps and push up to 800K IOPS with slick responsiveness. It’s also backward compatible with Gen3 and Gen2 PCIe slots with reduced bandwidth but retains excellent latency.
Larger Than It Looks
Many 2230 drives are limited in capacity, making life more difficult, especially when building an extensive game collection. Many devices come with limited internal storage space, forcing you to pay a premium or rely on microSD cards. Now you can store everything you want on one drive as the Rocket 2230 comes in capacities of up to 1TB.
Cutting-Edge Hardware
The Rocket 2230 features the new PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD controller with exceptional 3D TLC. Often you have to compromise with 2230 drives, settling for embedded controllers and/or QLC for capacity. Our new Gen4 controller offers gaming desktop-class performance combined with efficient flash for the best experience. DRAM-less with HMB support, it also won’t overheat your device.
Back in the Sabrent Labs, we tested Steam Deck stock SSDs to see what performance a user could expect. Our testing of what comes pre-installed inside your Steam Deck shows slow, sluggish SSDs that can lead to poor game performance.
We tested several Steam Decks we purchased with different SSD capacities. We found that there was a broad mix of different brands of SSDs that came with our Decks. A user simply does not know what they are getting pre-installed SSD-wise with the current lineup of Steam Decks that we looked at and tested.
Our testing of what comes pre-installed inside your Steam Deck shows slow, sluggish SSDs that can lead to poor game performance.
In the Lab, we tested using KDiskMark on the desktop with the Steam Decks we have here. KDiskMark, which is very much like CrystalDiskMark, obtained these results, which are disappointing, to say the least.
We installed our new Sabrent 2230 1TB SSD and saw outstanding performance increases immediately. These performance increases made our Steam Deck much more responsive, faster game loading times and general game-related experience improved with faster level and game element load times.
Sabrent Works for You
Our retail drive comes with a full warranty for complete support, unlike OEM drives that you might buy second-hand. This includes a free download of Sabrent Acronis True Image so you can clone your old drive. This drive will also be supported with any necessary firmware updates, ensuring future compatibility.
We’re hoping to have a 1TB drive for a review in soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that! Hard to argue with buying a 64GB Steam Deck and being able to upgrade it to 1TB for the same cost of the 512GB Steam Deck, so Sabrent’s coming in clutch!
