I have an ASUS B550-F motherboard and want to add another NVMe drive using a PCIe expansion card. Ideally, the adapter should position the M.2 drive high enough to leave room for an aftermarket heatsink, and it should support a double-sided 2280 SSD if possible. My existing 1TB PCIe 3.0 Kingston drive is nearly full, while my 4TB WD Black SN850X is about half full. I'm considering another SN850X or a newer SN7100, but I'd like to avoid upgrading my AM4 system to AM5 and DDR5. Has anyone used a reliable adapter that offers good cooling clearance?
3 Answers
I used a JEYI M.2 PCIe adapter with an aluminum heatsink and had a good experience testing it. It supports PCIe 4.0 x4 and common M-key drive lengths, including 2280. A similar raised adapter with a clip-on heatsink should meet your requirements.
Most basic PCIe-to-NVMe cards are just passive adapters that route the PCIe lanes through, so there isn’t much electronics to fail. Look for one with a proper M.2 mounting screw and enough clearance for your drive. The SN7100 and SN850X generally don’t require a huge heatsink as long as the case has reasonable airflow.
The motherboard already has two onboard M.2 slots, so the expansion card should go in the lower full-length PCIe slot. The shorter slots only provide PCIe 3.0 x1, which would severely limit an NVMe drive’s performance.
The main thing I’m still trying to confirm is whether the adapter and heatsink leave enough clearance for a double-sided SSD. I’ll check the card’s spacing and the drive thickness before ordering.