Folks looking for the fastest Gen5 SSD option have something to be excited about as ASUS announces its Hyper M.2 SSD Gen5 x16 expansion card. This expansion card is said to be capable of lightning-fast read speeds up to 512 Gb/s (64 GB/s) when using Gen5 NVMe drives in RAID0. The Hyper M.2 SSD Gen5 x 16 expansion card is capable of fitting up to 4x M.2 2242/2260/2280/22110 Gen5 drives using ASUS’s tooless Q-Latch design. A single 6-pin connector provides power to the card with up to 14W per drive then the integrated blower-style cooling fan which can be controlled via ASUS’s Fan Xpert 4 software. Additional cooling is provided via top and bottom thermal pads and a full-cover heatsink.
Even as ASUS announces its Hyper M.2 SSD Gen5 x16 expansion card it should be noted that manufacturers have yet to release NVMe drives capable of the card’s maximum potential. That, however, is likely to change in the coming months. Bootable RAID is also a possibility for systems that support it and the card is capable of up to 128 GT/s bandwidth per M.2 slot when using RAID. The Hyper M.2 SSD Gen5 x16 expansion card is also backward compatible with Gen4 NVMe drives. VideoCardz has reported that Juan Jose Guerrero (ASUS Product Manager for North America) has said the expansion card will launch for just $79.
Per the official product page:
- ASUS Hyper M.2 x16 Gen5 Card (PCIe 5.0/4.0) supports up to four NVMe M.2 (2242/2260/2280/22110) devices at up to 512 Gbps for RAID functions across diverse CPU platforms
- 1 x 6-pin PCIe power connector and two-phase power solution with up to 14-watt output to support the latest NVMe drives
- Large heatsink and active fan reduces M.2 SSD temperatures for unthrottled transfer speeds and enhanced reliability; additional fan cable connects to the motherboard’s chassis fan header to allow the motherboard to control and regulate fan speed
- Adapted server-grade PCB supports up to four PCIe 5.0/4.0 M.2 drives, with up to 512 Gbps bandwidth for smooth data transfers