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Review on 🌟 StarTech.com Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Expansion Chassis with DisplayPort and External PCIe x16 Slot for Thunderbolt 3 Devices (TB31PCIEX16) by William Stevenson

Revainrating 4 out of 5

It works out! at Hard Drive Accessories

I ventured the purchase of this item to use the Samsung 960 PRO Series - 2TB PCIe on my iMac Pro. As an adapter I used Ableconn PEXM2-SSD M.2 NGFF PCIe SSD to PCI Express 3.0 x 4 Host Adapter Card. I chose a non-StarTech adapter because Revain users rated it better at the time of purchase. My goal was to get the same, close to, or faster read/write speeds than my iMac Pro's internal storage. The good news is that the StarTech Thunderbolt chassis connected straight away. I only give 4 stars because it works. I was very scared as there were literally no other reviews. But I assure you it works. In the end I didn't save this article because I couldn't get the advertised speeds for SSD. The advertised read/write speed on the Revain site is 2100/3500. But I got 950/2300 each. I don't think it's the StarTech article's fault, but I can't say for sure. My guess is that it was a combination of an adapter and a slower Thunderbolt cable. If your situation is similar to mine (purchased from Apple) and you see this as a cheaper memory expansion solution, I suggest you bite the bullet and just upgrade to more internal memory. If you're looking for it to connect other components like a graphics card, I think chances are good that it will work. Edit: I forgot to mention that it comes with a fairly short Lightning cable and you'll probably want to buy a longer one. It also comes with US and European power connectors. Edit 2: I managed to raid 2 Samsung X5 m.2 together. The RAID speed of these drives is far superior to the internal read/write speeds of my iMac Pro. Just make sure your rides are on separate buses.

Pros
  • 1 Year Trial
Cons
  • Crumpled Packaging