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.
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.
Use high-performance PCIe cards with any computer with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Supports one half-length+ (up to 7.75 inches long), full-height, single-width PCIe card (plus one daughter card).
Offers full PCIe bandwidth to the installed card. Learn more about Thunderbolt 3 performance benefits over Thunderbolt 4.
Takes up little space on the desktop, but large enough to support nearly every Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe card, at full performance.
One port connects to computer; second port supports daisy-chaining of up to five additional Thunderbolt peripheral devices.
Temperature-controlled, variable-speed fan automatically and quietly cools the card.
Powers on/off automatically with the computer.
Provides robust and secure protection.
Daisy chain port provides up to 15W of power to connected peripherals.
Supports M series Macs (with PCIe cards that have compatible drivers).
Supports Intel Macs with Thunderbolt 3 ports and Thunderbolt 2 ports (with adapter and Thunderbolt 2 cable, both sold separately); and Windows computers with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Supports Linux computers with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 ports.
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.
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.
1. Space for a daughter card
2. PCIe 3.0 x8 slot
The Echo I Desktop features a 40Gbps Thunderbolt interface that delivers up to 2800 MB/s of PCIe bandwidth, enabling it to support 4K video capture and processing cards at high frame rates, and 16Gb FC cards and dual-port 10GbE cards at full performance.
Compatible with Apple M series Macs
see Tech Specs for details
