Connect One Full-height, Half-length+ PCIe Card (Plus Daughter Card)
It’s amazing how much processing power Mac®, Windows®, and Linux® computers with Thunderbolt™ 4 or Thunderbolt 3 ports offer today's creative professionals. However, these sleek marvels of engineering thinness come at a cost — they lack PCIe expansion slots for adding PCIe cards for connectivity and processing capabilities. Sonnet has a solution – the Echo™ Express SE I Thunderbolt to PCIe card expansion system provides a compact, one-slot Thunderbolt expansion system that enables you to connect a single PCIe card to your computer via a single cable.
The Thunderbolt Connection
Plugged into one of your computer’s Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 ports, this compact desktop expansion system supports one professional PCIe card (video capture, audio interface, 6Gb or 12Gb SAS or SATA host bus adapter, 8Gb or 16Gb Fibre Channel, 10Gb or 25Gb Ethernet, or RAID controller) plus a daughter card.
Nearly Every Thunderbolt-Compatible, Non-GPU PCIe Card Supported
Designed to accommodate cards up to 7.75 inches long and measuring a compact 5.6 inches wide by 8.6 inches long by 3.5 inches tall, the Echo Express SE I has a small footprint, yet it is large enough to support nearly every Thunderbolt compatible PCIe 4.0, 3.0, PCIe 2.0, and PCIe 1.1 card available. Do you have a card in mind but aren’t sure it’s compatible? We’ve put together a compatibility list that identifies cards conforming to Thunderbolt technology requirements, and organized by fit and power compatibility with specific expansion systems.
One PCIe 3.0 Slot and Space for a Daughter Card
Echo Express SE I features an x8 PCIe slot, and supports one half-length+, full-height, single- or double-width PCIe card. Double-width? Some pro video and audio interface cards, such as Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink 4K Extreme, and RME’s HDSPe MADI FX card, include a daughter card that mates with and provides additional external connections to the main card. The daughter card occupies the adjacent space without filling a PCIe slot.
Quiet Please
Echo Express SE I is designed to be ultra-quiet so that it can be comfortably used in noise-sensitive environments. The airflow path within the chassis has been specially designed to enable the temperature-controlled, variable speed fan to quietly and efficiently cool the installed card at all times, even during peak operation.
The Secure Connection for High Performance
40Gbps Thunderbolt Cable and ThunderLok 3 Included
Sonnet includes a Thunderbolt cable that supports Thunderbolt’s full 40Gbps bandwidth, and is fully compatible with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 computers. Sonnet also provides a ThunderLok™ 3 Thunderbolt connector retainer clip that prevents accidental cable disconnections — just slide it over one end of the cable, and then plug in the connector and secure it to the chassis by turning a thumbscrew. Because of its unique design, ThunderLok remains on the cable so it won’t get lost when not in use.