Sabrent Rocket Q4 and Corsair MP600 CORE NVMe SSDs Reviewed: PCIe 4.0 with QLC
by Billy Tallis on April 9, 2021 12:45 PM ESTConclusion
The Sabrent Rocket Q4, Corsair MP600 CORE and related drives form the first crop of QLC drives to support PCIe Gen4. It is clear from our testing that the PCIe Gen4 support doesn't automatically make these drives high-end. The Gen4 capability on these drives isn't a big deal for overall performance, though they are incrementally faster than most PCIe Gen3 QLC drives.
The Rocket Q4 and MP600 CORE definitely provide faster sequential transfer speeds than other QLC drives and entry-level TLC drives, but for random IO the Intel SSD 670p often steals the spotlight despite only supporting PCIe gen3 on its host interface. Optimizing for fast sequential IO is a great way to produce big numbers for marketing purposes, but the tradeoffs made by the Intel 670p seem for the most part to better for the real world.
These Gen4 QLC drives inherit the most notable problem with the Phison E16 controller - the high power consumption- and this adds on to the poor efficiency of QLC NAND. The combination still isn't particularly prone to overheating or thermal throttling during normal consumer use, but heatsinks do make more sense for these drives than on most M.2 SSDs currently shipping with fancy heatsinks. There's not much demand yet for PCIe Gen4 SSDs for notebooks, but these drives are definitely ill-suited to that role.
Previous QLC NVMe drives had already proven that QLC can be an acceptable route to mainstream NVMe performance, provided that the drive has a high enough capacity. The Rocket Q4 and MP600 CORE show that peak performance can be extended even further, but they don't do much to illustrate how worst-case performance can be improved to further reduce the downsides of QLC.
| NVMe SSD Price Comparison April 9, 2021 |
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| 500 GB | 1 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | ||||
| Sabrent Rocket Q4 PCIe Gen4, QLC |
$149.98 (15¢/GB) |
$279.98 (14¢/GB) |
$689.98 (17¢/GB) |
||||
| Corsair MP600 CORE PCIe Gen4, QLC |
$154.99 (15¢/GB) |
$309.99 (15¢/GB) |
$644.99 (16¢/GB) |
||||
| Mushkin DELTA PCIe Gen4, QLC |
$159.99 (16¢/GB) |
$299.99 (15¢/GB) |
$599.99 (15¢/GB) |
||||
| Sabrent Rocket Q QLC |
$64.99 (13¢/GB) |
$109.98 (11¢/GB) |
$219.98 (11¢/GB) |
$599.98 (15¢/GB) |
|||
| Corsair MP400 QLC |
$109.99 (11¢/GB) |
$229.99 (11¢/GB) |
$593.99 (15¢/GB) |
||||
| Mushkin ALPHA QLC |
$569.99 (14¢/GB) |
||||||
| Intel SSD 670p QLC |
$69.99 (14¢/GB) |
$114.99 (11¢/GB) |
$249.99 (12¢/GB) |
||||
| Samsung SSD 980 DRAMless, TLC |
$69.99 (14¢/GB) |
$129.99 (13¢/GB) |
|||||
| WD Blue SN550 DRAMless, TLC |
$59.99 (12¢/GB) |
$109.99 (11¢/GB) |
|||||
| SK hynix Gold P31 TLC |
$74.99 (15¢/GB) |
$134.99 (13¢/GB) |
|||||
| WD Black SN750 TLC |
$69.99 (14¢/GB) |
$139.99 (14¢/GB) |
$299.99 (15¢/GB) |
$799.99 (20¢/GB) |
|||
As we saw with the TLC drives when the Phison E16 controller first brought PCIe 4 support to consumer SSDs, that extra bandwidth comes at a significant premium. For the more mainstream capacities, the E16 QLC drives are substantially more expensive than the PCIe Gen3 QLC drives using the older E12 controller, or even the recent Intel SSD 670p. However, at 4TB, the premium for Gen4 on a QLC drive is a lot smaller. Mainstream PCIe Gen3 TLC drives are also cheaper than the Gen4 QLC drives, for capacities below 4TB. At and above 4TB there really aren't many options, and almost all of the are QLC-based. It is disappointing that upgrading to PCIe Gen4 has so far precluded these Phison drives from offering the 8TB capacity that is available from Phison E12 drives. That will likely come as 28nm controllers make way for newer models on 12nm or smaller.
These Gen4 QLC SSDs are not a great general-purpose storage solution; they certainly don't combine PCIe Gen4 and QLC and come out with only the best advantages of each. But they are still suitable for some use cases, especially centered around higher capacities.
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pdegan2814 - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
The endurance rating of the standard MP600 is exactly why I bought it as well. It blows most other SSDs out of the water in that regard. And it's more than fast enough for my needs.ozzuneoj86 - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
All I get from any SSD review lately is that SK Hynix needs to release a Gen4 drive, since their Gen3 drive leads by a good margin in many tests already. Unless you need more than 1TB on a single drive, there's not much reason to go with anything but the P31 (or the 980 Pro if money is no object). Very high efficiency (less power is less heat), high performance, high consistency (empty vs full) and competitively low price. The only thing preventing me from getting a P31 myself is that I'm sure they'll put out a Gen4 version before long, and unless they screw something up it should be among the best drives available.ozzuneoj86 - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
Sorry, I forgot about the SN850 and 970 Pro... those are also competitive, but much more expensive.bernstein - Saturday, April 10, 2021 - link
The problem with the p31 is that it was never available. at least in europe. And there is no 2tb model...ozzuneoj86 - Sunday, April 11, 2021 - link
Sorry to hear they are hard to get in Europe. The P31 is very easy to get in the US for $135 and often goes on sale for less at Amazon.But I agree, not having a 2TB option is unfortunate.
Samus - Sunday, April 11, 2021 - link
We can get the 1TB regularly for (MSRP?) $130-$135 at retail and online in the USA, but as you and ozzuneoj said, not having a 2TB variety is a missed opportunity for Hynix because this has been my go-to drive for nearly a year in just about every upgrade I do (I use nothing else in laptops or SFF\ITX systems where the power efficiency and low heat are most beneficial)On top of that, I have installed dozens and zero have failed. An amazing accomplishment from Hynix. I've used the S31 in legacy systems with SATA ports and it's equally excellent especially for the price, though the MX500 is still my go-to drive for legacy systems because it is often slightly cheaper, and again, I have seen zero failures from those drives over the years.
Come on Hynix make a 2TB model already...
back2future - Sunday, April 11, 2021 - link
that's not the point for data retention . Having data on a SSD (nand flash, type slc, mlc, tlc, qlc) it would be necessary specification for customers (beside TBW) how to store SSDs or power cycle for long term data security?While having been impressed with performance (compared to non-raid HDD) since first time SSD experience, few information about long term data security is minor customer support on that item?
Hulk - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
I'm pleasantly surprised by the very good performance metrics for these drives. The combination of 1/4 drive SLC cache with the "housekeeping" in the background makes for a fast, yet economical drive. I have a feeling prices on these will drop pretty quickly and they'll be a great buy in 6 months to a year. I don't think I'd use them in a laptop and I think I'd go 2TB or larger for the sake of performance and endurance though.shabby - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
Quality(endurance) , price, performance... choose two. With qlc you can only choose one 🙄Hulk - Friday, April 9, 2021 - link
I'm not so sure about that. 225GB day written for 5 years for the 2TB drive. If you aren't in a server situation I don't know how you'd ever get near that number.