Sabrent announced a new NVMe SSD called the Rocket 4 Plus G with all-new SSD firmware optimized for DirectStorage workloads. Sabrent refers to its firmware as “O2,” which is apparently Phison’s “I/O +” firmware that it will provide to its OEMs, such as Sabrent, for its drives. This makes the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus G the first DirectStorage-oriented SSD.
The DirectStorage API will allow supporting games to load in seconds, but it will also provide improved SSD performance in all types of storage-related tasks. The first Forspoken game with DirectStorage support won’t arrive until January 2023 at the earliest.
Sabrent hasn’t shared full specs, but has announced pricing, storage capacity and speed. The Rocket 4 Plus G will start at 1TB with a maximum capacity of up to 4TB. But prices are high, with the 1TB model starting at $169.99, the 2TB model at $299.99, and the 4TB model at $699.99. For that money, you get a fast drive with more than 7 Gbps thanks to TLC 3D NAND flash memory.
If you want, you can also buy a heatsink for $29.99 if your drive needs extra cooling. Ironically, this makes the drive (along with the 7Gbps speed) a great candidate as a secondary gaming drive for the PlayStation 5.
Sabrent advertises its O2 firmware with lots of gimmicks. Sabrent claims that the new O2 firmware has been optimized to provide superior interoperability for improved performance, without compromising durability.
Microsoft’s DirectStorage API was launched just a few months ago and promises improved gaming performance in supported games. This technology allows SSDs to transfer data directly to the GPU over the PCIe bus without requiring the CPU and internal memory to be bypassed for decompression. This technology should seriously reduce game load times and improve texture and resource streaming for games that require this type of streaming, such as Call of Duty Warzone.
Microsoft has not announced any strict NVMe SSD requirements for DirectStorage, except for the fact that you will need an NVMe SSD to use this technology.