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Finland, Helsinki
1 Level
706 Review
42 Karma

Review on ⚡ Highpoint RocketStor 6661A Thunderbolt 3 to PCIe 3.0 X16 Expansion Chassis: Enhance your system with lightning-fast connectivity! by Samik Drusky

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Could be better, see edit below

This is an overview of an enclosure to which you can add a PCIe card of your choice. For example, I use it for my Myricom SFP+ 10GbE NIC. In order for the PCIe card you choose to work, it must support Thunderbolt and consume no more than 45W. Two internal fans keep the card cool (many competing products only use one fan), and the case is roomy enough to fit cards up to 8.2 inches long at full height. Power Macs of the 2010 era. There's a standard PCIe (x4 3.0) open slot and enough space between the slot and the Thunderbolt port to accommodate a fairly wide range of cards. That means you can connect cards with more PCIe lanes (x8 or x16, for example) ), but the cards will only run at x4 speeds, which is said to be good for 4GB/s of raw bandwidth. A lot of people like these speeds with current eGPUs and it's about triple what my NIC can theoretically handle. We won't attempt to use an eGPU setup with this unit unless you're willing to either significantly reduce power requirements or make significant changes. You won't get far. While OEM cooling works fine for a NIC, SAS controller, etc., I doubt it's enough for a heavily loaded graphical install. It would be great if Highpoint made it easy for customers to mount this case horizontally. The fans are also a bit noisy, so I might consider replacing them with Noctua models in the future. Luckily, there are standard fan headers inside, so they're easy to swap out. Compared to competing products, this case is longer, narrower and cheaper. EDIT November 9, 2018: Sorry. To date, the department is no longer operational. The lights come on, the fans start spinning, then the power goes out and the cycle repeats. I doubt it's the external power supply (was easy to check but again not under load). I have contacted Highpoint for a replacement/repair. However, occasional use of less than a month should not cause the device to fail. After some returns and refunds were approved by the RMA, I sent my unit in and eventually they sent me a replacement. Since then the replacement has worked flawlessly. There are now better network adapter options than pairing this case with a PCIe card. It's a workable solution though, and I really like that the device only turns on when connected to an active Thunderbolt bus.

Pros
  • Nice packaging
Cons
  • Concise instructions