SABRENT NVMe M.2 SSD to PCIe X16/X8/X4 Card with Aluminum Heat Sink (EC-PCIE)

Great card, but the instructions ghosted me on the final step.Installed this little beast to give my old PC a much-needed kick in the PCIe lanes, and wow it's like giving a Vespa rocket fuel. It does exactly what it promises: makes your NVMe SSD feel like it was born to be there, nestled into your motherboard like it’s always belonged.BUT (and this is a lighthearted “but”), the instructions were about as helpful as a GPS that only gets you 95% of the way to your destination and then says, “You got this.” Nowhere did it mention putting the cover back on. You know, the part that protects your very expensive, very fast storage from flailing around like a toddler on espresso.Also included were these mysterious little thermal padding strips (thermal pads! That’s the word!) which I, a humble user with no mind-reading ability, had to Google to figure out. At first, I thought they were futuristic chewing gum or abstract art. Spoiler: they go between the drive and the heatsink. Not between your stress and sanity.In the end, once I figured it out (read: watched YouTube and got gently roasted by Linus Tech Tips in my imagination), everything worked perfectly. It’s solid, sleek, and fast. Just be prepared to finish the installation like a puzzle with the last piece hiding under the couch.Would buy again. Would just also like to have a small chat with the instruction writer. Preferably over tea.

Every once in a while, you buy an inexpensive device that works exactly as described and saves a ton of time and effort. This is one of those.Watched the Sabrent installation video on the product page, had a 2TB MSI Nvram installed into the adapter in about 10 minutes, plugged it into the 4x PCIe slot in the oldest machine I have (and I mean THE OLDEST - an Abit_IP35-Pro motherboard whose last BIOS update was almost 8 years ago) running Windows 10.Fired it up, device and Nvram were recognized immediately and a quick test showed about 950K R/W performance which was good enough for what I was doing - moving about 1.5TB of data from a hard drive on that machine to another machine.I hit it hard, writing that 1.5TB of data continuously for hours until it was done, and the Nvram's temp never rose above 35C. That heatsink arrangement is fabulous.I see some reviews saying the thing isn't locked down with no backplane support. Unless you plan on strapping the machine to the back of a motorcycle which you're then going ride cross country through the mountains, it's plenty stable enough.A little extra bonus is that the heatsink has four small blue LEDs at the top that flash when you access the device.Highly recommended as way of putting an (extra) Nvram stick in your machine.

Installed a WD_BLACK 4TB SN7100 NVMe, popped it into my PowerEdge R550, installed Proxmox, and booted it right up. Great product. Great solution for servers or desktops with no NVMe support. Only caveat is the instructions don't cover installing the 3 included thermal pads. They're different thicknesses. Which one goes where? I searched YouTube and found 3 or 4 videos related to this. Watched one, the answer seems to be it depends on how thick the chips are on your NVMe drive and that you MIGHT want to use the extras on the other side.

I am updating this review to 4-Stars because I did figure out that the limitations the drive tested was experiencing in my screenshot were partly Samsung Magician 'weird'. I tested a different PCIe Gen4 drive in the Sabrent card with CrystalDisk & saw 6.9GB/s Write speed & 6.4GB/s read speed... here's my original review:So I want to start this review with what I don't like/what isn't good.The packaging is basic, which can be expected from something in this price range, the reason that I gave it 3 stars instead of 5 is 2 simple things:1: THERE WAS NO RETAINING/MOUNTING SCREW IN THE PACKAGE. The instructions LITERALLY say "screw in retainer screw to hold your SSD in place" and there's no screw to do so with. Also, I tried an M.2 screw from a motherboard's M.2 drive screw set, and the threads are not compatible so I couldn't even use that. I ended up just installing the drive with the included thermal pad with no mounting screw or brace in place (I later replaced this Thermal Pad with a better one & the drive runs even cooler now).2: *(This comment is now inaccurate because of newer testing I've done on the product, but I'm leaving in this part so others that experience it know it's not just them - Do not use Samsung Magician to benchmark your drive speeds, use CrystalDisk if you must get numbers - just remember any benchmark is putting the drive under unnecessary strain and you shouldn't run it regularly). The read speed on the drive is performing inferior to the M.2 slots that are on my actual motherboard. I have 5 M.2 drives total, 3 (including this one) are 990 Pro models, the 2 990 Pros that are installed in the motherboard hit 6400-7400MB/s read speed on the same test in the picture I included with this review, this card's drive is stuck in the sub 5000MB/s category. It's not a huge deal, but it is something that detracts from the value imo.Couple of things to point out because I asked the question myself & got no answer: The card does run at full x4 4.0 speed & the interface with the M.2 is x4 4.0 according to Samsung Magician, so it is running at full speed as advertised, which I know some other off-brand cards have issues with (I've returned one that did before, Sabrent does not have this problem)The positives:1: Installation, other than the retaining screw being missing, was quite simple & straight forward, you unscrew the backplate, it comes apart, you use the right size thermal pad (I recommend the thicker one to ensure good interface with the heatsink), put your M.2 drive in, put the thermal pad on it, and screw it back together, then pop it in your PCIe slot.2: Temperatures are excellent - one thing to point out, I do have active airflow over the area with a fan which is also providing airflow over my GPU's intakes, so it is in a pretty optimal cooling scenario, but, I did a full test on the drive (which is what's shown in the picture) and it topped out at 42C on the main drive temp, with 52C on the "Drive 3" (which I assume is Controller temp), according to HWInfo 64. Pretty great temperatures, so the cooling is definitely good.3: Quality of build/material is pretty good, I would question the longevity of the screws used to put it together because they are very small with VERY small threads, so they may not last long with repeated install/removal, but the heatsink/card itself feels very quality.So I knocked it 1 star (updated) overall for the missing screw & the read speed being a bit low. If they had just included that screw or a better mounting-holding thing for the drive installation, I would've given it 5 stars.

Easy install, works great! Fast speeds and takes very little space on the mobo.

I have purchased this twice and happy with the product. One slight issue. They include 3 different thermal pads and never tell you how to select the proper one. I have found the thickest works best for the Samsung 990 Pro. I suggest to dry fit the pads and use the one that fits the snuggest as you need good contact, remembering that screwing the backplate on will further compress the pad. It needs a tight fit to disperse the heat. The screws are small so make sure you have don't lose them.