Sonnet Echo Express SEIIIe Thunderbolt 3 Edition (3-Slot PCIe Card Expansion Chassis)

I’ve been using this for the past couple of months now and I’m pretty happy with it. I spent the first couple of days doing some troubleshooting with it and after some google searching, I discovered that I didn’t have the latest thunderbolt drivers installed as I had previously thought (so make sure you do that and have the latest bios updates as well). After the driver update, everything was working smoothly...well, almost. The function I had the most trouble with was video capture using a PCIe HDMI capture card. The first one I tried was the Elgato HD60 pro, but had a very difficult time trying to capture an input signal. I tried using a similar card by SIIG, but saw identical results. After I did some reading up on the specs for HDMI and Thunderbolt 3, I came to the conclusion that there’s simply not enough bandwidth to accommodate the HDMI input signal, display port output signal and all USB devices when they're connected. Thunderbolt 3 is advertised to have 40Gbits of bandwidth which is theoretical, while the actual bandwidth is at 22Gbits. 8Gbits is given priority allocation to the first connected display which cuts your available bandwidth to 14Gbits to accommodate the rest of your devices. This might be doable with a video capture card using the HDMI 1.4 spec (which uses 14Gbits of bandwidth), but you’d be pushing your luck if you’re driving an external display while trying to record an incoming HD signal simultaneously. The HDMI 2.0 spec allows for bandwidth usage at 18Gbits which makes using a PCIe based video capture card impossible (unless no other devices were connected), so you’re better off using an enclosure you can dedicate a capture card to or get an external one that connects via USB 3. I went with an external one by Mirabox, which gave me the flexibility to use my pen display, audio interface and remaining USB devices while capturing an incoming HD signal. Would I recommend this enclosure? Yes, to anyone who is looking to assemble a custom Thunderbolt dock as I did.

After several problems running ProPresenter 7.8 with our old computer, our church recently upgraded from the 2015 iMac to the new 2021 iMac with the M1 processor. In order to send multiple signals out, the new M1 Mac Mini’s and M1 desktops are limited in outputs. So after lots of research, this chassis was recommended to pair with the Decklink Duo 2. Sonnet Expansion Chassis is so simple for installing other PCIE cards. Fans relatively quiet. I used the Decklink Duo 2, Blackmagic HDMI to SDI 3G converter, and USB PCIE. Now we can send signal to 3 different sources, plus other usb ports, etc. The only negative from when I bought this Expansion Chassis from Amazon, no power source was included. So read the listing as some come with this, others do not and I had to order another chord with enough wattage. Other than that, this has been working excellent! No issues since installing everything!

I bought this a few months ago and unfortunately never really used it. My main reason in buying it was to use it with the Blackmagic Design DeckLink 8K Pro G2, which requires 30w of power. This unit does only 15w so it wasn't working. Even if you use the auxiliary power in the enclosure, it is not enough. Other the an that it looks like a great piece of tech. If anyone knows how I could inreaae the power, then that would be perfect!

Very quite box. Nice design.

Caused several BSOD, and prevented keyboard from being found on boot. The keyboard was not even connected through the Sonnet device.

Really wanted this to work - the build quality of this Expansion Chassis is fantastic, but as soon as i plugged it in I realized I was going to have a real bad time: - Power indicator repeatedly flashed on/off - Audible buzz from the thunderbolt in/out card - None of the PCIE cards I added worked (man, I hope they all still work) - Acrid, electronics smell. The bad, something is fried and doesn't smell good kind - Generally having a real bad time I tried hooking up a different computer, different brands of thunderbolt cables, different lengths of cables, and removed all the PCIE cards and just tried to get the chassis itself to work - yet nothing, save having a real bad time. When the chassis does manage to power on (inconsistently), my desktop slows down a ton and has serious latency issues until i unplug the chassis. Sometime the chassis won't even turn on with the desktop, but when it sort of does manage to turn on its just an all-around bad time. I've also tried putting my PCIE cards directly in my computer's motherboard to see if those weren't the source of the problems, and they seem to function just fine. I still have some hope that, despite the trouble thus far, the RMA process will fix all this. But until then, it's going to be a real bad time.

As advertised.