Minisforum expands PCs via PCIe with four M.2 SSDs, OCuLink and USB-C
Many motherboards offer only two M.2 slots for SSDs, so anyone who wants more storage has to resort to slower SATA SSDs or external storage. Minisforum now offers another option, as the Minisforum ESP4B-850 PCIe Expansion Card can simply be plugged into a motherboard's PCIe 4.0 x4 port, allowing up to four SSDs to be connected to a PC.
If no more than two SSDs are installed in the expansion card, each is connected via up to PCIe 4.0 x4. With three or four SSDs, the bandwidth drops to PCIe 4.0 x2, or around 3.9 GB/s. While this means the speed of fast SSDs such as the Samsung SSD 990 Pro ($239 on Amazon) cannot be fully utilized when the expansion card is fully populated, an integrated fan is intended to ensure that performance does not drop too sharply under sustained load.
In addition to four internal M.2 slots, the expansion card also offers two ports accessible from the back of the computer. First, a USB-C port that supports data rates of up to 20 Gbit/s, and second, an OCuLink port. The latter allows up to four SATA hard drives to be connected using an included adapter. Alternatively, external PCIe 3.0 devices with OCuLink support can be connected.
Pricing and availability
The Minisforum ESP4B-850 PCIe Expansion Card can now be ordered for $135.90 from the manufacturer's online store with shipping expected to begin in late October.
Source(s)
Minisforum, via VideoCardz
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