Sonnet Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 3-to-PCIe Expansion Chassis (1 Low Profile Slot)

I am using the Sonnet Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe with:- StarTech.com PEX4M2E1 M.2 Adapter – x4 PCIe 3.0 NVMe- WDS500G2X0C mounted on the StarTech M.2 adapter.Everything seems to work flawlessly on my 2017 Macbook Pro.This is really a neat box. It allows laptop or All in one computer users to use equipment that is normally only available on tower styled computers.

This turned out to be my savior for my RME audio interface! I have an old (but still high end) RME Multiface audio box. The problem has been finding a way to connect that with current computers and laptops. The old way was to use RME's HDSP PCI card for a desktop computer or their PCMCIA cardbus card for a laptop. I have both. However these hardware interfaces have become obsolete making it very difficult to use the excellent quality RME audio gear. Fortunately, Sonnet Tech. has engineered this series of Echo PCIe Chassis so that you can plug the RME HDSPe card into the Chassis and then connect the Chassis to your laptop OR desktop through the Thunderbolt (2 or 3) port. It works very well and takes advantage of the high bandwidth and speed of Thunderbolt technology without losing any performance of the HDSPe protocol. And the chassis can provide up to 25 watts of power to the HDSPe card which is more than enough. So no problem with providing adequate power, a problem that another reviewer complained about. I like the SEL box because the Multiface box has almost exactly the same footprint as the Sonnet SEL box and sits on top of it perfectly!Highly recommended if you have a Multiface + old HDSPe card.

The Sonnet Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 3 worked like a charm when I used it to clone my laptop's 250GB Samsung NVMe SS drive to another one of the same, which I mounted into a StarTech.com PEX4M2E1 M.2 Adapter x4 PCIe 3.0 NVMe card, and inserted into the slot of this Sonnet chassis. The laptop's SSD was using Windows 10, and Samsung Data Migration software, and this jig cloned it in about 10 minutes. I am very pleased.

Awesome enclosure so far. Plug n' play on 2017 iMac running a Samsung 960 evo. Only hooked it up a few hours ago but so far it's performing just as I hoped.

Good quality build and easy to use. I'm using it on a Dell Precision 5520 running Windows 10 and it works great.

I bought this chassis along with a StarTech M2 PCIe SSD Adapter (PEX4M2E1) and a Silicon Power 2TB NVMe M.2 (SU002TBP34A80M28AB). The computer (2017 27" iMac) recognized the setup immediately and after getting things moved over, the chassis is now the primary boot/system drive.

Good: Very quiet and compact unit. Speeds seem to be as advertised. Works with my 10Gigabit Ethernet PCI Card.Bad: It only delivers 15W of power via thunderbolt. My 15" macbook pro needs 87W, and the 13" needs 60W. So this dock helps the macbook battery last slightly longer but doesn't actually charge the battery unless the computer is turned off. Even worse, if I plug this in before I plug my power adapter in, the computer will choose this over the power adapter, so even though I think I'm charging the computer, it is not. I have to remember to plug in the power adapter first, then plug this in. I even tried plugging the power adapter into the 2nd port on this, but it does not pass through, it still only delivers 15w.For a nearly $300 item, they should have thought this through a bit better and spent the extra $2 in parts to upgrade the power source and be able to fully power a laptop.

I bought this Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe card adapter to support high-end networking on my PC. For the first half of this year, I suffered through woes and setbacks trying to deal with the purpose-built, smaller 10GbE Thunderbolt network adapters being sold in the market. Almost every one of those is based on a buggy Aquantia chipset.I chose to move to this solution so I could choose my own (proven) network card. I work at a server company, and anyone in that market knows the networking leaders are Intel, Broadcom, Mellanox, QLogic, etc. I installed an Intel X550-T2 network card in this chassis and I haven't looked back since. It is rock solid. This card has been in the market for more than 3 years. Keep in mind that 10GbE may be new or exotic for home use, but it has been a networking standard for a long, long time in servers.The Sonnet Echo Express SEL chassis provides electrical support for a PCIe 3.0 x4 low profile card. Even though the connector on the board is x8 in size, it is only plumbed with a x4 connection (which is fine for my application, the Intel card is only a x4 device). The box sits on my desk behind my monitor and I can't really even hear its fan - which I am GLAD it has. The small-but-buggy purpose built 10GbE Thunderbolt network devices I mentioned earlier either a) have tiny fans that whizz noisily all the time, or b) have no fans and run super hot (not good).So - before you go down the long road I did of being an Aquantia network chipset tester and victim, just buy this chassis and choose your own proven network card from the server market.