Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 review: The perfect SSD for finicky Thinkpads

Best Prices Today: Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 SSD

While M.2 slots are universally 22mm wide, they can very in length. Most of the time, they’re either 80mm (your average desktop/laptop) or 30mm (Steam Deck and other gaming handhelds).

But there are devices, most notably the Lenovo Legion Go and Thinkpads, that measure 42mm from the contacts to the rear mounting screw. To secure a 2230 SSD in such a slot you’d need a slightly kludgy adapter. A more elegant solution is a real 2242 SSD like the Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 reviewed here.

Further reading: See our roundup of the best SSDs to learn about competing products.

What are the Rocket Nano 2242’s features?

The copper and blue decorated Sabrent Nano 2242 is, again, designed specifically for devices such as Lenovo’s Legion Go and Thinkpads. It will, however, work perfectly well in other computing devices that sport a 2242 (22mm wide, 42mm long) M.2 slot. As discussed above, its raison d’etre is an adapter-free fit.

A single-sided, PCIe 4.0 x4, NVMe SSD, the Rocket Nano 2242 is a DRAM-less design, using system memory (Host Memory Buffer/HMB) for primary caching duties. The NAND is 162-layer TLC (Triple-Level Cell/3-bit) and the controller is a PhisonE27T.

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The Rocket Nano 2242 is warrantied for five years (after registering) but Sabrent didn’t provide a TBW (terabytes that may be written) rating. The industry standard is around 600TBW per 1TB of capacity for TLC drives, so figure around that.

The odds of you writing that much in five years are slim to none. If you want TBW reassurance, look to Seagate, though that company doesn’t currently market a 2230 or 2242 SSD that we’re aware of.

Sabrent’s Rocket Nano 2242 is an elegant, fairly priced solution for upgrading storage in a device that sports a 2242 M.2 slot.

How much is the Rocket Nano 2242?

The Rocket Nano 2242 is currently available only in a 1TB capacity for $100. However, the company says that 2TB and 4TB terabyte capacities are coming soon.

The 2TB Sabrent Rocket 2230 is $220, so I’d guess close to that for the 2242 model, and around $450 for the 4TB, which will likely carry a slight you-want-more-capacity-you-pay-extra premium. I mean it when I say guess — don’t hold me to it.

How fast is the Rocket Nano 2242?

Though not the fastest small form-factor SSD (the other three in the charts are 2230), the Rocket Nano 2242 is certainly competitive. You can see that from the CrystalDiskMark 8 sequential tests below.

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Note that both the WD SN770M and the Corsair MP600 Core Mini were 2TB units, while the Sabrent Rocket 2230 we tested was a 1TB SSD, like this Rocket Nano 2242.

The Sabrent Rocket Nano 2242 was also quick in CrystalDiskMark 8’s 4K small read/write tests.