This add-in-card is an expansion PCIe device that can host up to four SSDs up to 25110 form factor. All four SSDs have four lanes available, making sure that they get the full bandwidth. More importantly, this expansion card supports the newest PCIe Gen5 standard. Each of the four SSDs can theoretically deliver up to 128 Gb/s of bandwidth (16 GB/s). Such speeds are of course not yet possible with any commercially available Gen5 SSDs, but there is nothing technically stopping this product from supporting future generations of SSDs.
To support four SSDs, each has to be installed at a 45-degree angle, which limits the distance between the SSD connector and the PCIe interface. Given how much power each SSD needs, the 75W available through the slot may not be enough. This is why ASRock added a 6-pin power connector just in case. ASRock SSD expansion card is 13% bigger than previous AIC cards for storage. This is to accommodate larger fans with variable speeds, but the company still managed to squeeze this design into a one-slot design. ASRock Blazing Quad M.2 card was announced alongside Intel’s W790 platform, which offers up to 112 PCIe Gen5 lanes. With Intel’s newest Xeon/HEDT platform, there is technically nothing stopping users from using even 7 such cards in one system.
