SilverStone ECM23 is an M.2 Riser+Heatsink Letting You Slot-in Your Drives Like Cartridges

[btarunr]

The ECM23 from SilverStone is one of the more interesting M.2-PCIe SSD risers to come out in recent times. It looks like a game cartridge from 1980s, and slots into one of your PCI-Express x16 slots, which it then uses to wire out an M.2-2280 M-key slot with PCIe x4 wiring. The riser itself has x16 interface, but beyond x4, all the other lanes are blank, and only serve to add retention, since the riser doesn't feature an add-on card bracket to hold it in place. The main PCB has no logic of its own, other than link/activity LEDs for the four PCIe lanes.

It's more optimal to use drives with all their hot components on one side, since that side has access to the chunky ~40 g main heatsink. Heat from the other side is drawn from a copper mesh printed on the PCB, which supposedly conveys it to the back side, which has an aluminium back-plate, which bolts onto the main heatsink, sandwiching the PCB and drive in the middle. Measuring 105 mm (W) x 11 mm (H) x 44 mm (D), the ECM23 weighs 52 g (excluding the weight of your drive). The company didn't reveal pricing.



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[Caring1]

Seems manufacturers design these with inverse or horizontal motherboards in mind.
Having the cooling slots on the lower facing side in a normal layout doesn't make sense, but, that's just my opinion.

 

[Animalpak]

Immensely good idea !!!

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

good product, but unlikely to see one over here considering how small the market segment will be... =/

 

[_JP_]

I just realized we could use more PCI-e slots now, like bitcoin boards but for RAID arrays.

Seems manufacturers design these with inverse or horizontal motherboards in mind.
Having the cooling slots on the lower facing side in a normal layout doesn't make sense, but, that's just my opinion.

It actually does. PCI-SIG specifications to abide by. Because you could say that about any PCI-e expansion card. Height space for an expansion card since PCI in a ATX form factor is always facing the slot below, so to say. At best, not exceeding the bracket's height.
Any other direction is an exotic design and does not follow the standard (yes, even extensions).

 

[PLAfiller]

I've got a soft spot for SilverStone. I like this one as well. But as previously said, availability with them is hard...at least here. I am eying their remote for turning on the PC I might as well get one end of the year.

 

[JorgeRod]

On ebay they are only $ 17.89. Not from Silverstone. I ordered one and is running 100% with an SSD M.2 2280 Kingston A1000 240GB 3D TLC NVMe

https://www.ebay.com/itm/123232438579

 

[JalleR]

Try googling h1111z AC3310 ssd, and im sure you will find what you are looking for with shipment to your door.

Otherwise a company called JEYI make some grate ones i have the model: MX16 and VollyStar and they are working grate.

 

[W1zzard]

Great idea!

 

[GreiverBlade]

I just realized we could use more PCI-e slots now, like bitcoin boards but for RAID arrays.

ooohhhhh!!! ... with that a mining board would have a better use, good find!

Seems manufacturers design these with inverse or horizontal motherboards in mind.
Having the cooling slots on the lower facing side in a normal layout doesn't make sense, but, that's just my opinion.

i think it has to do with space management due to the slot positioning (after all GPU have heatsink on the bottom )

well in a normal fan setup ... sense does not matter in a passive setup... it does a bit more

Immensely good idea !!!

Great idea!

well it already did exist and potentially cheaper (saw them on Aliexpress for quite a while), although i think the vast majority will think of that as an innovation from Silverstone and the one with the "better known" branding is superior and works better

Try googling h1111z AC3310 ssd, and im sure you will find what you are looking for with shipment to your door.

Otherwise a company called JEYI make some grate ones i have the model: MX16 and VollyStar and they are working grate.

Yes that, exactly (and they are even cheaper than on Ebay)

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I wish they included some SLi or cfx fingers in the design so you could possibly pair two of them up with a HB bridge for increased bandwidth.

 

[Ruru]

Now this looks cool (pun intended), I need to try this.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

It's a neat idea, already been done before, but the inclusion of a heatsink is nice.

HOWEVER

Using one of these on your motherboard either means using PCIe 2.0 through the chipset, of cutting your GPU PCIe 3.0 connection to x8 instead of x16. Most high end motherboards include a separate connector with its own 3.0 x4 connection, separate from the GPU connection, and often have their own heatsinks already. And most systems only have 1 NVMe drive as a boot drive. What is the advantage of using a PCIe slot?

This would make more sense on lower end motherboards that might not have NVMe slots or dont have heatsinks for them, but those kinds of builds dont seem the type to spend the extra $$$ on NVMe.

 

[Whilhelm]

I have five of the JEYI ones from Aliexpress and they work awesome for all my m.2 SSDs. These are great if you have the PCIE lanes to make use of.

 

[GreiverBlade]

It's a neat idea, already been done before, but the inclusion of a heatsink is nice.

every single of those that are already on the market have a heatsink... the only "original" inclusion would be the silverstone logo and name (making the heatsink a few fin less than the others )

the board under is also the same ... : a Silverstone logo and name instead of a big ROHS

Spoiler: if silverstone price it above 16$ : it's a fail.

well Silverstone have some good stuff aside (case mostly and also my own Raven RVP01 XXL mousemat ) ... so i will not complain if they fail on that one and put it at 32$ :laugh_

 

[thekaidis]

It's a neat idea, already been done before, but the inclusion of a heatsink is nice.

HOWEVER

Using one of these on your motherboard either means using PCIe 2.0 through the chipset, of cutting your GPU PCIe 3.0 connection to x8 instead of x16. Most high end motherboards include a separate connector with its own 3.0 x4 connection, separate from the GPU connection, and often have their own heatsinks already. And most systems only have 1 NVMe drive as a boot drive. What is the advantage of using a PCIe slot?

This would make more sense on lower end motherboards that might not have NVMe slots or dont have heatsinks for them, but those kinds of builds dont seem the type to spend the extra $$$ on NVMe.

Unless you have an actual high-end platform, in which you can have multiple x16 slots.

 

[bonehead123]

Nice idea, but I've had 2 similar set-ups using another card + EK heatsink (that matches my rig color) + sammy 950pros for over a year now, and IIRC it only cost me about $30 total.... works like a charm and does NOT reduce my GPU link speed either because I have them in the last 2 lower slots x4 slots, which is all the drives are designed for anyways..

neveranottaproblemo

 

[Fx]

I like it. A simple, clean design.

This will be good for older motherboards. I used to use an adapter like this, but it didn't have a heatsink.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

These have been around for more than a year, what's the big deal?

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Unless you have an actual high-end platform, in which you can have multiple x16 slots.

Those high end threadripper and HDET platforms ALSO already offer multiple full 3.0 X4 M.2 ports on the motherboard, and you STILL usually only find one for a boot drive.

 

[Mussels]

It's... beautiful

 

[Octopuss]

Icutting your GPU PCIe 3.0 connection to x8 instead of x16

Even if this thing only runs in x4 mode?

 

[Caring1]

I wish they included some SLi or cfx fingers in the design so you could possibly pair two of them up with a HB bridge for increased bandwidth.

There's already one that takes two drives on the one adapter and places them in raid.

 

[bonehead123]

There's already one that takes two drives on the one adapter and places them in raid.

Yea but gotta be careful cause alot of those dual drive cards only take 1 name drive + 1 m2 ssd, instead of 2x nvme drives...

 

[Mussels]

Even if this thing only runs in x4 mode?

its a motherboard/chipset thing, but yeah a lot of SLI boards default to 8x/8x even if a 1x card is put into the second slot