SABRENT Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 1TB SSD Review: A Compact Powerhouse for Your Devices

I had read a lot of horror stories about upgrading the M.2 NVMe drive on the Surface Pro 8 (SP8). There were a lot of stories about overheating and BSOD when trying to re-install Windows. When I saw this Sabrent drive advertised on Amazon it specifically said Surface Pro compatible and that it ran cool, so I took a chance on it. I am very pleased with the result. I'll do the TL;DR part up front: I upgraded my 256GB M.2 Drive on my Surface Pro 8 with the 1 TB Sabrent Rocket 2230 NVMe M.2 drive, and the drive runs great at PCIe 4.0 Speeds according to CrystalMark 8. No BSOD and runs under 50 Celsius *EDIT*: Under maximum load, about 35 degrees celcius degrees idle/normal operations *END EDIT* according to CrystalDiskInfo 8. I was able to copy all of my files using Acronis partitioning software you get to use free from Sabrent when you purchase their drive. If you want to know exactly how I copied everything over without ever having to go into the BIOS, keep reading: UPFRONT DISCLAIMER: You will need to purchase three things to do this upgrade if you don't have them already. Two of them you would need anyway if you were to upgrade like Microsoft suggests: #4 Torx screwdriver/bit, thermal compound, and an external NVMe drive enclosure. 1) First I did purchase an external NVMe enclosure to copy the old drive to the new one. You can find them on Amazon for under $30 US. You need to make sure the enclosure can take 2230 size drives. I got one that had USB C to USB C cable and was thunderbolt compatible. Another consideration is that after you swap the NVMe drives you can use the enclosure with your old drive and have another high speed hard drive to back stuff up on, although I found you will need an NVMe thermal pad/heatsink for the old drive or it can overheat. 2) After reading about BSOD NVMe upgrade horror stories on the SP8 it lead me to articles talking about AHCI Link Power Management - HIPM/DIPM. HIPM/DIPM power management is not on by default and you actually have to do a Windows registry edit to make it available. There are some good guides on how to do this via a quick google search. I recommend you enable it and turn the feature on. 3) I had to disable drive encryption before copying files over (it is on by default). You can either disable encryption or get a USB encryption key. I chose to decrypt the drive which will take hours depending on how much data you have on the drive. You can re-encrypt once everything is over to the new drive. THIS NEXT PART IS WHERE MOVING FILES OVER AND GETTING WINDOWS SETEP ON THE NEW DRIVE DIFFERS FROM WHAT MICROSOFT WANTS YOU TO DO. 4) I cannot stress enough the kudos to Sabrent for having their own disk partition software. Acronis, which you can get from Sabrent's website, will copy all of your files over for you verbatim; no reinstalling necessary. Follow the disk cloning prompts, and the best part is it will automatically increase the size of your main windows drive to maximum while keeping your boot partition and recovery partition intact (just make sure you chose the correct cloning prompt). Acronis alone makes it worth it to go with Sabrent. 5) The SP8 comes with a front and back metal sleave for the NVMe drive. YOU WILL NEED a #4 Torx screwdriver bit (very tiny!) to unscrew the drive and screw it back in. The metal casing snaps off (do so gently so as not to bend the casing). I cleaned off the thermal compound the old drive had, put in the Sabrent drive, re-applied some CPU thermal compound I already had, and put the casing back together, then screwed it back into the SP8. A lot of videos show using a thermal pad instead of re-using the Microsoft drive enclosure. I think the drive enclosure helps distribute heat evenly back into the SP8 chassis. I turned the SP8 on and it recognized me with all of my files intact without ever having to go into the BIOS the first time. I have been running normally for almost two weeks and not a single issue. Drive runs cool and fast. Works great and couldn't be happier. I hope this helps you out if you are on the fence!

**Title:** Great Docking Station – Does Exactly What It Says **Review:** The SABRENT 6-Port Docking Station for Steam Deck is exactly as advertised. The build quality is solid, and all the ports work flawlessly. HDMI outputs crisp 4K video, USB-A and USB-C ports provide ample connectivity, and the 95W Power Delivery keeps the Steam Deck charged without any issues. It's compact, easy to set up, and performs as promised. If you need a reliable dock for your Steam Deck, this one gets the job done without any unnecessary frills. Highly recommend!

I bought the 1TB SSD to record log videos directly from my iPhone 15 Pro Max. I connect it via a 10Gbps USB-C to NVMe Adapter, and it works flawlessly. I can record directly to the SSD without any interruptions or data loss. The biggest advantage for me has been the time saved during video editing. No more constant file transfers—everything is right on the SSD, and it significantly speeds up my workflow.

I never thought I'd be here writing this review. Well, here we are! So one thing I would like to point out is the craftsmanship of this product. The material doesn't feel cheap; the dock has a solid build along with a built-in M.2 slot for more storage. I've downloaded my AAA games on my 1TB SSD to test out the dock's built-in M.2 slot, and I didn't see any changes in speed or load times. It ran perfectly fine; also, the charging capability is excellent with a pass-through charging dock. It has a decent weight, so it doesn't feel cheap; it's sturdy and secure when housing your Steam Deck. I almost forgot to mention that the dock has grips on the bottom to prevent sliding or unwanted movements. The heat level is decent, nothing major. The dock comes with a built-in heat sink to reduce overheating from your built-in M.2 SSD slot. I would definitely recommend this product to a friend, and I hope they expand its features to include a display port, an additional type C port, and an SD card slot for additional storage.

Overall, highly recommended this solidly built product! First off my one issue with it, then into the good... Some grief with connectivity while using a USBC monitor (powered separately w/ video going from the dock to an HDMI to USBC converter then into the monitor). Required being careful what order things got turned on/plugged in, and occasionally resetting deck to default settings in the boot menu (customer service was helpful in troubleshooting my issue). And now it's plugged into an amp just using HDMI it seems to be working fine. Aside from that, EXCELLENT product! It's USBC cable is quite thick and stiff, and was lying flat of course in the packaging. After slowly easing it into position it holds its form, and seems very secure at the dock end (I was worried this could be a weak point on any dock). Quality build, all the ports are nice and easy to use. The M2 storage slot is really where this product shines... I have a 256GB steam deck with a 1TB microSD card... Now that I have a 2TB M2 slot in the deck, I keep all the games I only play while docked, as well as downloaded games I don't plan on playing right away. MicroSD card is for games I am currently playing that fit, or games I might want when portable. Internal drive is now exclusively SteamOS and for use in desktop mode. SteamOS does just as good a job installing/moving/deleting/etc. games on and off the M2 as it does off the microSD or internal drive. Plenty of power for charging and peripherals. Because I'm using my steam deck as basically a PC, I needed more peripheral slots. A USBA hub with four USBAs is plugged into one of the dick's ports and I'm running keyboard/mouse on a 2.4ghz dongle, a headset off a 2.4ghz dongle, and a controller off a 2.4ghz dongle, with no issues. I also have an external fan plugged into a other of the docks ports (and I'll plug an external hard drive in for file transfers in desktop mode). Needless to say I'm pushing the dock's capabilities with respect to drawing power and running comms through USBAs, and it's (now) working flawlessly. I highly recommend this well built dock; for the money you get a solidly built product with maybe the most features you can find on a quality product, and the M2 storage slot makes it the PERFECT companion for a docked deck with limited internal storage.

Very clear image and works great

Llegó en perfecto estado y en tiempo. Lo compre para actualizar mi Steam deck de 64gb, hice una clonacion de la tarjeta de 64gb a esta tarjeta por medio de mi desktop. Se reiniciaba en algunos juegos pero se solucionó haciendo un reinicio de fábrica ya con la tarjetas de 1tb. Ha funcionado muy bien desde entonces para guardar muchos juegos de steam. La carga de juegos es buena si tarda menos tiempo que cargarlos desde una Micro SD. Recomendable.