ELSA Announces Thunderbolt PCI-Express Expansion Box

[btarunr]

Run out of expansion slots in your system? Bulky graphics cards eating into smaller PCI-Express x1/x4 slots for devices such as PCIe SSDs, sound cards, and other expansion cards? ELSA has a solution for you, provided you have a Thunderbolt port to spare. The company announced the MAGMA ExpressBox 3T, an external add-on card enclosure, which talks to its host over Thunderbolt.

The MAGMA ExpressBox 3T encloses three standard expansion card bays, with two open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x8 slots and a PCI-Express 2.0 x4. The three can be used for PCI-Express add-on cards of nearly every electrical configuration. The enclosure packs its own 250W power supply. It features two Thunderbolt ports, with which it can be a part of a larger Thunderbolt device daisy-chain, letting you conserve the limited number of Thunderbolt ports in your system. The enclosure is PC and Mac-compatible. Measuring 371 x 200 x 110 mm (WxDxH), the enclosure is made of aluminum panels with a steel frame. The company did not reveal pricing or availability information.



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[Frick]

Nice. How quick is Thunderbolt again?

 

[Aquinus]

Nice. How quick is Thunderbolt again?

20Gb/s, bi-directional. Each link is 10Gb/s.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Except that's not an Elsa product, it's made by Magma - http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt
Oh and they start out at $979...

 

[Aquinus]

What's really neat is when ThunderBolt sends data to the cable, it actually two different streams of data. There is a multiplexer/decoder on both ends of a thunderbolt cable that multiplexes the signal on each end shoving more data over thunderbolt. If you ever notice why your ThunderBolt cable gets warm (I do, I have one at work for imaging our newer Mac laptops,) that is why. The cable does a little more than just enable data to be sent back and forth, it's changing it to send it back and forth.

 

[Nordic]

What's really neat is when ThunderBolt sends data to the cable, it actually two different streams of data. There is a multiplexer/decoder on both ends of a thunderbolt cable that multiplexes the signal on each end shoving more data over thunderbolt. If you ever notice why your ThunderBolt cable gets warm (I do, I have one at work for imaging our newer Mac laptops,) that is why. The cable does a little more than just enable data to be sent back and forth, it's changing it to send it back and forth.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=48394&stc=1&d=1347447808

That is cool

 

[cadaveca]

What's really neat is when ThunderBolt sends data to the cable, it actually two different streams of data. There is a multiplexer/decoder on both ends of a thunderbolt cable that multiplexes the signal on each end shoving more data over thunderbolt. If you ever notice why your ThunderBolt cable gets warm (I do, I have one at work for imaging our newer Mac laptops,) that is why. The cable does a little more than just enable data to be sent back and forth, it's changing it to send it back and forth.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=48394&stc=1&d=1347447808

ALso explains why the cables are so expensive. This is much better than DisplayPort cables that cost a lot, but for an unknown reason.

 

[Huddo93]

Something like this would be awesome if you did a miniITX build with 1 expansion slot (used for graphics card) but still wanted to use a pci wireless card and a soundcard to, if the price is right. Surely this product is going to cost a fortune though