Packaging

The Drive

The Rocket 1608A is a full-size PCI-Express add-in-board that measures 28 x 10 cm.


As mentioned before, the host-interface uses a PCI-Express 5.0 x16 connection that supports running without bifurcation support from the motherboard.


The card is a single-slot design, width is just 20 mm.


The slot cover has eight LEDs to show the connection/busy status of each drive. An additional two LEDs are used to indicate the PCIe bus width/speed and error condition. Note the blue LED, this notes "x16 5.0."


A single 6-pin power input is used to provide power for the SSDs. Combined with the slot, this brings the maximum power delivery capability to 150 W, which is plenty, even for eight Gen 5 drives and the Broadcom bridge chip.


Six standard screws hold the AIB together.


Once the cooler is removed, we get our first look at the adapter card's PCB.


Several thermal pads on the heatsink ensure good heat transfer. Spare pads are included.


Nice engineering! The fan is connected using this pin type connection, which ensures you don't have to mess around with a fan cable and connector.


Each M.2 slot has one of these little rubber caps to hold the drive in place. To me, they felt a bit cumbersome to use, I'd definitely have preferred screws or some kind of tool-free locking mechanism like on modern motherboards.


Here's the adapter card filled up with eight PCI-Express Gen 5 drives—sexy!


This is the heart of the R1608A, a Broadcom PEX89048 controller PCI-Express switch, providing 48 lanes of PCIe Gen 5. Of those, 16 go to the host CPU, and each M.2 slot gets four full Gen 5 lanes, so each drive can run at maximum speed. Do note that all PCIe switches add a little bit of latency, according to Broadcom the added latency is less than 115 nanoseconds.