The Sabrent Rocket XTRM 5 may very well be the definition of overkill when it comes to external storage: at 6GB/s read and 5GB/s write, it is very much the world’s fastest external SSD, and also the world’s first Thunderbolt 5 SSD that is natively supported in exactly one laptop.
Sabrent Rocket XTRM 5
Before that, let’s have a quick refresher on the latest Intel-developed standard: Thunderbolt 5 is designed to double the speeds of Thunderbolt 4 in normal duplex mode (at 80Gbps), and in certain conditions, this can be switched into “Bandwidth Boost” mode that allows for 120Gbps downstream / 40Gbps upstream split. To convert that number into a more familiar one, 80Gbps is 10GB/s, so that means the Rocket XTRM 5 still has some way to go (which the company acknowledges in its sneak peek video).
While this is a Thunderbolt 5 SSD first and foremost, it will remain compatible to Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, and any USB-C formats. Of course, you will need a TB5-compatible laptop to utilize all of its speeds, but you probably can’t today – the only laptop that comes with Thunderbolt 5 ports today is the Razer Blade 18, which has a sky-high asking price to even get the TB5 option (whereas base models offer TB4 only).
That being said, having a drive this fast does come with some unintended side effects, mostly in the form of heat. Based on what is presented in the video, the external SSD does look quite a bit larger than most portable SSDs, which usually do not exceed the footprint of a credit card. It’s likely that the rather large volume is there to keep the drive cool under heavy loads, which is among the biggest factor in maintaining the drive’s performance.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
Pokdepinion: It’s somewhat surprising that almost no laptop gets Thunderbolt 5 support today, even in high-end ones.
