Review on Electop Adapter Express Expansion Compatible by Jarom Bulles

This adapter consists of two main components: the board where you connect the SSD, the PCIe connector and the heatsink/housing. The board itself and the included hardware you use to mount the SSD to the board appear to be of good quality and work properly. If that were the entire product, I think it deserves about 4.5 stars. If you're just using this part and aren't worried about the heatsink/case then you should be fine, but if you want to you're probably better off with one of the cheaper deals that comes with just the board and hardware . On the other hand, the heatsink/case has both design and build quality issues and TL/DR should be rated 1.5 stars hence my 3 star overall rating. The instructions (on that exact product page) say to place a thermal pad between the SSD and the board. The problem is that the heatsink/housing only touches the board surface on a very small portion of the edges of the board and therefore does not transfer heat well to the heatsink. Also, most SSDs only have components on one side, and that is NOT the side that faces this circuit board. If you put a thermal pad on top of the SSD instead, it will barely make contact with the inside of the heatsink (I checked by adding up all the measurements with calipers). Still, I found the SSD ran colder without the heatsink/case, and when I assembled it as advertised, it got even hotter and throttled (slowed down to avoid overheating). This should fix that by adding a slightly thicker thermal pad and updating the instructions to tell you how to put it on the SSD. You can still use a thinner one between the SSD and the board if you have an SSD with components on either side, but most of the heat comes from the controller, which is always top mounted, with a few flash chips on the back. that require less cooling. Please note that other very similar products include either two spacers (the thinner ones between the SSD and the card) or just one thicker spacer between the SSD and the heatsink. Another issue with the heatsink/housing is poor fit and finish. The back/heatsink cover has indentations on one side designed to go in where the back of the screw that attaches the SSD to the card goes in to ensure there are no gaping issues. That's good, but the holes at the corners of the cover that you use to screw it onto the radiator aren't in the center vertically, but are offset to the side. That means it only moves in one direction (which is fine), but the problem is that when you attach it this way, the indentations only line up with one of the three possible mounting holes. Basically they drilled holes with the cap in the wrong orientation. If they did it any other way, all three mounting holes would line up with all three cutouts. Another fit and finish issue is that the two screws at the corners closest to the PCIe card slot connector are too short. One only screws in one turn (so it's flimsy and easy to remove) and the other doesn't screw in at all once the card and cover are in place. Both screw down fine without it, but basically the screws are too short there and unfortunately this is the side that takes the most stress when inserting or removing the card. The two screws on top work well as their holes are much closer to the lid and therefore screw in about 5 turns or so and are therefore much less likely to snap off. I suggest just buying a bare card for the 16x slot instead of this product. I wanted a heatsink, but unfortunately this is worse than no heatsink.