The latest ultra-light notebooks, small form factor, and all-in-one Mac®, Windows®, and Linux® computers with Thunderbolt™ 4 or Thunderbolt 3 ports are amazingly thin, but there’s nowhere to install PCIe cards. What if you want to add video capture, processing, or connecting capabilities to your computer? Sonnet has the answer–the Echo™ Express SEL is a compact, desktop Thunderbolt™ to PCIe card expansion system that enables you to connect a low-profile PCIe card to your computer via a single Thunderbolt cable.
Plugged into one of your computer's Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 ports, this little expansion system supports many low-profile PCIe cards (Thunderbolt-compatible 16Gb and 8Gb Fibre Channel, 25Gb and 10Gb Ethernet, video capture and processing, SAS and SATA host bus adapters, and RAID controllers) through its x8 PCIe 3.0 slot.
Use high-performance PCIe cards with any computer with a Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 3 port.
Supports one low-profile PCIe card.
Offers 2750 MB/s of PCIe bandwidth to the installed card. Learn more about Thunderbolt 3 performance benefits over Thunderbolt 4.
Smallest Thunderbolt to PCIe card expansion system available; supports the most popular low-profile, Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe cards 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.
The Echo Express SEL accommodates a wide variety of PCIe cards. Do you have a card in mind but aren’t sure it’s compatible? We’ve put together a list in our supporting PCIe Card Thunderbolt Compatibility Chart (PDF). There you’ll find cards identified as conforming to Thunderbolt technology requirements, and organized by fit and power compatibility with specific expansion system.
Echo Express SEL supports one half-length (up to 6.6 inches long), low-profile, single-width PCIe card; PCIe 1.1, PCIe 2.0, and PCIe 3.0 cards are supported. Many of the most popular Thunderbolt-compatible high-speed networking and storage controller cards are a perfect fit, and even the BlueFish 444 Epoch 4K Neutron video card can be accommodated.
1. PCIe 3.0 x8 slot
The Echo Express SEL features a 40Gbps Thunderbolt interface(2)(3) that delivers up to 2750 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.
The Echo Express SEL is fully compatible with Thunderbolt 4 computers and was purposely designed with a Thunderbolt 3 controller and its four lanes of PCIe (not available in a Thunderbolt 4 peripheral) to achieve maximum performance. Learn more about the performance benefits of Thunderbolt 3 over Thunderbolt 4.
also compatible with M1 Macs
see tech specs for details
No Thunderbolt 3? No problem—the Echo III Desktop is also compatible with Macs with Thunderbolt 2 ports when used with the bi-directional Apple® Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter and a Thunderbolt cable (both sold separately).
