Sabrent Rocket XTRM 5 debuts as world's first Thunderbolt 5 external SSD

Intel's Thunderbolt 5 brings many improvements to the table, including up to 120 Gbps of bandwidth and 240 watts of charging. However, not many available accessories in the market are taking advantage of the new connectivity standard. Just recently, Cable Matters brought out the first cable utilizing the standard, and now, Sabrent has introduced the Rocket XTRM 5.

It's the world's first Thunderbolt 5 external SSD, which also happens to be the fastest external drive at the moment. The Sabrent Rocket XTRM 5 has an M.2 2280 slot, which houses a PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD. Sabrent has offered a sneak peek at the performance, and it is shown to reach over 6,000 MB/s read and over 5,000 MB/s on the write.

This level of speed is nearly the same as the write and read speeds of an internal SSD. Another thing worth mentioning is that the shown read performance is two times higher than that of a decent Thunderbolt 4 external SSD, while the write speed is nearly double.

Sabrent also mentions that the company has prioritized efficiency, which aims to make the external Thunderbolt 5 SSD operate at lower temperatures. The drive is backward compatible as well, and it works with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, and USB 3.2 (1 TB Samsung T9 curr. $134.99 on Amazon). But on older standards, the read and write speeds won't be as high as mentioned before.

For example, when Sabrent tested the Rocket XTRM 5 on a Thunderbolt 4 port, the external SSD could offer around 3,000 MB/s of read and write speeds. While it's not as high as Thunderbolt 5 is capable of offering, these speeds are on the higher end of the Thunderbolt 4 spectrum.

Another key detail about the Sabrent Rocket XTRM 5 is that it will be available in four capacities: 4 TB, 2 TB, and 1 TB. The company hasn't shared whether all the options will deliver the same level of performance. Moreover, there's no word on when the external drive will be available, but the company did say that they are making the last few tweaks.