SilverStone: Small expansion card adds up to four high-performance SSDs

SilverStone, a manufacturer of various accessories for PC systems, has just unveiled a new expansion card in the form of the ECM40. This allows for storage expansion when options for installing high-performance storage media are limited. Specifically, the expansion card is plugged into a PCIe 4.0 slot, which in turn enables the installation of up to 4 M.2 SSDs. Supported formats include M.2 2230, M.2 2242, M.2 2260 and M.2 2280, so there are virtually no restrictions in the choice of storage. The expansion card measures 147.74 x 181 x 21.59 millimeters and only occupies one slot.

According to SilverStone, a data transfer rate of up to around 7,350 Mbps (as long as a single drive is connected) can be achieved on modern PCs with a drive like this Kingston Fury SSD. As usual, this figure applies to sequential data transfer and read file operations only. The ECM40 is not only intended to connect the SSDs, but also cool them. A heat sink and a 40-millimeter fan are attached for this purpose, of which the latter can be switched on and off manually via a switch on the back.

The ECM40 may be useful in rather compact PC cases that do not have mounting options for 2.5-inch drives and/or on motherboards that offer few options for installing an M.2 SSD. Information on price or availability is still pending.