Icy Dock has introduced a new adapter that can house up to four M.2-2280 solid-state drives (SSDs) with a PCIe Gen5 x4 interface and run them in RAID mode. The card is designed primarily for those who need ultra-fast storage and run high-end desktop processors, such as AMD Ryzen Threadripper and Intel Xeon W.
Icy Dock’s ExpressSlot MB204MP-B adapter hosts four M.2-2280 (or smaller) SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface, but it requires PCIe bifurcation on the motherboard level as it does not have its own PCIe switch. On the one hand, this makes it relatively cheap, but on the other hand it needs an expensive platform, such as AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper and Intel’s Xeon W that can bifurcate a PCIe x16 slot onto four x4 ‘slots’ and support AMD RAID or Intel VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) technologies to enable multiple SSDs to work in various RAID modes (RAID 0/1/5/10 modes are supported).
With four high-end SSDs and via a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface, Icy Dock’s ExpressSlot MB204MP-B adapter can theoretically offer performance of up to 56 GB/s sequential read speed, though everything will depend on the actual drives used. For example, four drives each offering up to 10 GB/s sequential read/write speeds will be able to provide up to 40 GB/s aggregated read/write performance.
To ensure that power-hungry drives with a PCIe Gen5 x4 interface get enough power, Icy Dock’s ExpressSlot MB204MP-B adapter has a six-pin auxiliary PCIe power connector. And to ensure that drives to not overheat, the adapter installs SSDs into special removable trays with an integrated heatspreader. There is also a 50-mm blower fan to ensure decent cooling. The fan can be turned off to make the system quieter, though probably at the cost of performance under high loads. In addition, the adapter has individual drive status indicators.
Icy Dock has yet to disclose the pricing of its ExpressSlot MB204MP-B adapter, but keeping in mind that the unit does not carry any expensive PCIe switches, it should not be too expensive to produce and therefore should not be too costly . Still, this product is certainly not aimed at mainstream PCs, but at professional workstations.
