MSI has created an SSD PCIe adapter in the shape of a graphics card. Now, you can pop in two hot-swappable M.2 drives through the I/O shield and live out your dual GPU fantasy, even if it’s only surface-level.
The M.2 Xpander-Aero Slider Gen 5 is an add-on adapter that looks like a regular single-fan graphics card. Inside, we find two PCIe Gen 5 M.2 slots supporting up to 22110 format SSDs. Unlike many competing products, MSI’s solution actively cools the drives using a large fan blowing air on the heatsinks. This is particularly important for hot-running Gen 5 SSDs.
By default, the fan only spins when detecting a drive, though you can manually switch it on or off. As for the drives’ status, you have a couple of LED indicators showing which slot is populated. The best part however is the easily accessible drive bays located on the I/O shield. Usually, such a solution puts the drives directly on the PCB below a cooler, rendering them completely inaccessible when the card is installed on the PC.
From the looks of it you can only open one slot at a time – maybe to stop the first SSD from falling out when installing a second one. Personally, I would have preferred a push-to-lock mechanism instead of this basic lock, as the former would allow easy SSD installation even when the PC case is located in a hard-to-reach place.
Though it looks like Asus’s unique RTX 4060 Ti graphics card, which packs an extra M.2 slot on the back, MSI’s solution is 100% storage-oriented with no GPU included. This is unfortunate as we already have several GPUs – such as the RTX 4060 and RX 7600 – that leverage only half the PCIe lanes they occupy. Having a graphics card with two x4 M.2 slots would fully utilise the interface, though it probably adds a premium to the product’s price.