This Device Needs Some Work M.2 NVME Drive PCIE Adaptor Sabrent EC-PCIE

This review sucks, this guy doesn’t know what he is talking about.

The graphics on the Amazon web page show the installation of the mounting screw and thermal pad.

Yeah, you should stop doing videos since you are obviously unqualified.

if I have already put two SSDs on the motherboard, this one is on the real PCI, seen?

Had one, I had no problem adding the heatsink. But as you found the heatsinks not needed. I took it off. The card ran great as my PCIE Boot drive of a couple years. I would say, buy it if you are using a GEN 3 drives.

Yikes. The whole point of the holes in the PCB/PCIe fingers is that you can use it in a 4x, 8x, or 16x slot.

A pretty wide variety of PCIe devices from lots of different manufacturers have used this design for many years now. Some PCIE slots will have an open rear end which allows mechanically larger devices to extend past the end of the slot, but that’s not super common.

This PCB design exists to try and idiot proof the experience for layman users. I can completely understand never having come across this design before, but as a reviewer you have a responsibility to not put out blatantly false information. Mistakes happen - but mistakes that could’ve been avoided by doing a comprehensive investigat…..oh wait, nvm - turns out someone leaked these state secrets by putting them on the 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙤𝙭.

I have watched your stuff several times before and really enjoyed it, I do genuinely mean to be constructive despite my terminal inability to not be this sarcastic.

Not sure what the solution here is, but I do know that for all the time and effort you put in to making this (otherwise great) piece of content, you could’ve given your viewers a not completely incorrect understanding of how this product works by sniffing out some clues in the product’s honest to goodness name (on both Sabrent’s Website and Amazon):

“Sabrent EC-PCIE NVMe M.2 SSD to 𝗣𝗖𝗜𝗲 𝗫𝟭𝟲/𝗫𝟴/𝗫𝟰 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱”

would the Bejavr rgb one be a good alternative. would it perform like this one. please answer

Would the cooling be a lot better if the pad was a lot thinner?

This thing didn't sit in the pcie slot correctly....just flopped about and was easily pulled out.

the fat tpad goes in between nvme and adapter, and thin ones at extremes

Thanks for the headsup Mike!
Any other budget's that you would recommend?
I actually thought x16 would work fast, no? How about a dual slot NVMe?

Thanks for the video - for a thumbs up please tell me what NVME carrier you would recommend?

I recommend finding the official video from Sabrent on this device. They never mentioned using any of the pads under the drive and they referenced using the one that fits properly on the top instead.

I regret buying this because:
- I don't know if anyone else experienced this but one of the screws on the back is EXTRA tightened and the screw driver that was provided immediately stripped the screw... I tried every method to get the screw out but it just made it worse.... I think I have no choice by to saw it

Is there a better version of this then?

So why shouldn't I buy this?

I have 5 of these lying around because they work so good and are so cheap. I can't understand your logic about not recommending them.

WD black is perfect because its pcb is very thin. But the cheaper black. Beware nvme drives wit a fat pcb cant hold that brass part where the screw from beneat goes into. Shame its not mentioned in the video.

Hello, I just finished putting a Samsung 980 into this adapter. The deciding factor for me was build quality. Sabrent is a somewhat known brand, and the heatsink design looked good to me. I wanted something with screws instead of rubber bands which will very likely eventually snap. The fact it has a metal backplate was a very pleasant surprise.
I have to agree that, yes, this adapter is not really beginner friendly, due to the horrible manual.
But if you know what you're doing and already own some decent thermal pads, maybe even a caliper, it's a solid choice.
Why caliper? I've noticed that on some drives the chips don't have the same height. So in order to have a nice level contact with a heatsink, it's best to measure it with a caliper and use thermal pads with different thickness. Personally I use the Arctic pads, because they provide good heat transfer and softness.
I ended up putting one of the provided 0,5mm pads plus a 1mm pad under the (single sided) SSD. The thick pad is probably meant to go there, but I noticed a slight bend in the SSD when doing that, so while it's probably not a real issue I chose not to use it. A soft 2mm pad might be the optimal choice.
On top of the chips I went for 1mm on the controller and 0,5mm on the memory chip. When opening the adapter to check for contact I could see the chips' indent on the pads, so it fits all very nicely.
Admittedly, as stated before, that's not beginner friendly at all. But the base design of the adapter is the best I've seen so far.

this adapter has a lot more pins than the one i put on. Trying to add the adapter as a boot drive. windows recognizes it; old mobo. Do you think this adapter might help recognize it in bios so i can boot from it?

You are only supposed to use one thermal pad. I have one of these adapters and it works fine. I highly recommend it.

Like many users here, I had to figure it out for myself before discovering your video :) My solution was also putting just the one (thicker) thermal pad on the top of the M.2, to couple it with the finned heatsink. FYI: I would think that the title of this video ("Don't buy this product") is a bit misleading. I think the product in itself is great - but the manual's instructions very poor. Maybe the title should reflect the excellent help you gave? ("How to properly* install this product...") Thanks for the great explanation

With so many options and 'oportunities' to eff things up, it would be nice if the PCIe/m.2 adapter and an SSD, already assembled, was available to buy, so theres no work to do and no chance to mess things up.

I don't think the heat sink is the main purpose of the adapter as most similar adapters don't include a heat sink at all because realistically most NVME ssds will run fine without any additional cooling hardware. I don't agree that this shouldn't be bought since it performs as advertised provided the buyer knows how to properly install it. The only part of an nvme ssd that would benefit from cooling is the NAND chip which is the only part which has a significant rise IN temperature while in operation and the effectiveness of the heatsink would be determined by the airflow within your case and how your fans are oriented. The main reason I bought this adapter as my GPU covers the secondary M.2 slot for my secondary ssd. I found this adapter allows me to swap NVME ssd's without having to remove my GPU and made it easier overall since it's easier to swap different NVME ssds on the adapter rather than having to do so on the motherboard which is really inconvenient and puts more wear and tear on that motherboard M.2 slot. NVME ssd thermals dont really require any cooling, NVME ssd heatsinks and other cooling products marketed towards cooling these ssds is just a gimmick. It is not likely that users will be doing any type of demanding reading or writing tasks that would have an effect on the performance. I think you missed the target on this product, it's not a cooling device, it's an adapter which includes a heat sink which is more for esthetics as most users don't like the appearance of an exposed pcb.

Anybody struggling to get the screws undone should know they are probably rusted in place, 3 of mine were fine but 1 of them was rusted so bad i had to wrap the screwdriver in a washcloth to actually get the grip needed to break it loose.

I bought this adapter so i can mod it with Sabrent silver heatsink for a 4tb ssd, should be fun

lol

I bought one. Immediately stripped a screw rendering the heatsink useless. I ripped it off and the PCB underneath was still usable.

of course, it Sabrent... i heard m.2 drive fail, i recent bough hub and one of port is dead. good to know

thank you

What do you mean it needs a pcie x16 slot? Do you not see those giant cutouts strategically placed to fit into a smaller pcie slot?
And what do you mean you were confused by the thermal pads? Its a thermal pad, it goes between the heat source and the heat sink, and yes they actually did put it in the manual, you can even see it in their amazon pictures. NO YOU DONT PUT IT BETWEEN THE HEAT SOURCE AND MAGNETIC SHIELDING what are you doing!?

Will a X4 to x4 riser suffice

I have one M2 slot with only 2 lanes and one pcie x4 slot which should be much faster.
Is it better to place my NVME Drive in the M2 slot where i get only half speed (1700 MB/s instead of 3400)
or should i buy an adapter for pcie x4 slot?

Greetings Mike ;). and thanks for this helpful video ... although I am looking to upgrade the PCIe SSD in my 2015 MacBook Pro ...and it has a 12 /16 connector on it , that seems to be very difficult to locate a USB ( external drive case - for ?!?!?1? I am guessing that ppl are being pushed into the newer NVME's ?

Anyhow , I am thankful for any & all help in this endeavor in advance :)

Thanks again ... Tim

Okay, I finally got this working and as well got a reply from the Sabrent support. Apparently those thermal pads are meant to be put only between the top of the NVMe and the top heatsink. The reason why there is so many different sizes is so that you can try to find the best fit for your NVMe brand. You still need to peel of those plastics from both sides before sticking it in between. You can also cut those into right size and shape as well. My Samsung 980 PRO has the other end a little bit lower, so you can put two smaller ones there and cut them in half in length.

If you follow the tracks on the back of the pcb I guess that leds are displaying the power/ activity of the 4 pcie lanes. Only the x4 part is wired, 8x and 16 are support only.

I use the external USB typ C single unit one. It is rock solid. The internal one does work in a 4x or 8X. It really only needs into an X 16 physical slot if you are using it in the case when you move the machine a lot.

Wtf man. You messed it up the product works absolutely fine. I've got two of them.

n'importe quoi! this is a great adaptor! just put the right thermal pad on top deppending on your ssd thickness and you're good to go! 🙄

if not Sabrent, would appreciate recommendations for well designed PCIe x4 adapter (for 970 Evo Plus)

Hi Mike would you think this would be fine if someone just wanted to add another NVME drive to the system to keep their game library ? so no major data transfer etc... thanks in advance mate :)

Mine is running at about half the read speed of my 970 evo+. Going to put it in my second X16 slot to see if results differ.

I bought this adapter 2 weeks ago. Like you said in the video, the installation manual is very unfortunate and poor, as it doesn't tell how/where to use those thermal pads. Anyway, after few tries, I think I found out how Sabrent wanted to use the pads. I used it on Samsung 970 Pro 512GB in the following way:
One of the thin pads goes on top of the drive (did not peel off the sticker) and the thick pad goes underneath (the gap between the adapter and SSD was too big so the thin pad would not make a sufficient contact). This is how I have put it together and works me. Temperatures are around 50°C even under heavy activity. (Without the heatsink it was reaching 70°C).
For those who are still reading and wondering what happened to the 2nd thin thermal pad, here we go:
I also tried to install the 2nd thin pad between the back plate and the PCIe card adapter, however, I had difficulties to put this "sandwich" together, as the screws were not long enough. However,when I pressed the whole "sandwich" really strong together, I managed to screw all 4 screws. But after doing so, the whole thing looked deformed and the card was of a curved shape. It really didn't look nice, and I didn't want to push this curved thing into my PCIe slot, so I took the 2nd thermal pad off.

would your xpg work better if you had removed the plate or heat spreader on top?

I bought this adapter with a small 256gb ssd to offload the page file in a small form desktop pc that only has space of a single HDD. I found the stand-off frustrating as the SSd I purchased is too thick for the machined groove and doesn’t fit well. Even then, the drive doesn’t seem to lay parallel to the adapter. After seeming your video, I chose to forego the heat transfer mess.

I bought a silver stone PCIe to dual m.2 adapter It’s a NVMe closest to the board and a SATA M.2 in the upper slot with a SATA data plug on the end. It came with a standard and a low profile bracket that went into my sff build. Solid little add in card.

I’ve seen some people use ones like these in The older Mac Pro towers to get better ssd speed: and extend the life on those.