Echo Express SE II Thunderbolt 2 Expansion Chassis for PCIe Cards

Sonnet's Echo Express SE II enables you to connect two high-performance, professional pro video capture and processing, digital audio interface, DSP accelerator, FireWire, RAID controller, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA, and other PCIe cards to any Mac with a Thunderbolt port. Accommodating cards up to 7.75" long, this compact Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe card expansion chassis supports nearly every Thunderbolt-compatible PCIe card on the market, including double-width (PCIe card + daughter card) cards. Measuring just 6.5" wide by 4.6" tall by 11" long, the Echo Express SE II takes up little space wherever you work, be it in the studio, on location, at your desk, or in the edit suite. Like all Echo Express chassis, the SE II has two Thunderbolt ports that support daisy chaining of up to six devices to a single port on your computer.

Built for Speed
20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 technology-equipped computers are here. The original 10Gbps Thunderbolt interface provided breakthrough bandwidth for external expansion, more than sufficient to support the maximum performance of most PCIe cards. However, some high bandwidth cards such as 16Gb Fibre channel, multi-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet cards, or multiple bandwidth-hungry cards require more than 10Gbps. Thunderbolt 2 removes this barrier by providing more bandwidth for demanding applications. The Echo Express SE II's Thunderbolt 2 interface takes full advantage of this increased bandwidth to ensure optimum performance from installed cards when the chassis is connected to a Thunderbolt 2-equipped computer. Need to connect to a computer equipped with 10Gbps Thunderbolt? No problem, the SE II is fully compatible with earlier generation Thunderbolt computers as well.

Two PCIe 2.0 Slots Plus Space for a Daughter Card
The Echo Express SE II's PCIe 2.0 x8 slots support two half-length+, full-height, single-width PCIe cards, or one single-width card plus one double-width card. Double-width? Some specialty cards, such as RME's HDSPe MADI FX card, Blackmagic Design's DeckLink 4K Extreme, and the Lynx AES16e 50, include a daughter card that mates with and provides additional external connections to the main card. The daughter card occupies the adjacent PCIe card space without filling a slot. The Echo Express SE II accommodates a daughter card's installation without wasting a slot.

Cool Design Outside and In
The Echo Express SE II's aluminum outer shell securely protects the cards inside and helps transfer heat away from them. The large and quiet, temperature-controlled fan automatically speeds up and slows down smoothly as needed, so there's no guesswork in deciding which switch position to select. The enclosure is ventilated front, back, and bottom to facilitate airflow over the cards.