I’ll post a payment link tomorrow so I can gauge my first batch size and you guys can pre-order one, as a quick guess it will be between 30-50USD for the PCB + the door for the expansion bay shell including shipping.
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Just a question also as a community disclaimer, what did you opt for in the end? 4i oculink and ssd, or full oculink speed? I assume you are going to explain a bit more tomorrow, but just to ask (I don’t care, I will buy anything XD).
PS: also a shoutout to @Seneral for his support on this of course!
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US only or worldwide?
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/patientbear
Worldwide, as I’m in Australia via FedEx International Priority
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Payment link has been setup.
This item includes the OcuLink Expansion bay module, with a DisplayPort input, USB-A 2.0 output, SFF-6811 8x OcuLink connector and a 3D printed back piece. Do note that if you only purchased a Expansion bay Shell with your Framework Laptop 16 you will need to purchase a Graphics Module interposer here: Framework which should be available soon. Shipping timeframe is between 30-60 days and updates will be provided to orderers weekly. If you want to subscribe to my own newsletter that I’m going to make updating people about new products, you can do so directly in the checkout. I’ve set my price at 45USD including shipping.
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I just realised that I have OcuLink 4x connectors and M key m.2 receptacles, so if people want I might setup another payment link for a 4x and M.2 Expansion bay module
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I’m interested, but not necessarily now. I suppose there is a risk that this a “now or never” kind of deal? Like if I try to buy one in 6 months you won’t have any left, and not enough demand to make a new batch?
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Buy when you want, as long as I’m still active here I’d be happy to produce one.
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@Josh_Cook Do you have photos or CAD that we could see? I have been following this for awhile, and I would love to see the finished product!!
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I don’t have any physical photos, but I’m finishing off the updated PCB design now so I’ll send some CAD renders soon.
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I’m currently selling 8x Oculink, but I’ll be selling 4x + an M.2 one soon
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dumb question: what is the available bandwidth of the 8x version and then what is the bandwidth of the 4x version that you expect to sell?
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PCIe V4.0 Speeds
x4: 7.877 GB/s
x8: 15.754 GB/s
Thunderbolt 4:
4 GB/s
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This is a little more of a wild suggestion, but any chance of an active switch PCI-E bay that can fan out a ton (4-8 ports) of downstream Oculink/M.2/U.2 storage from the Gen 4 x8 upstream port?
I know there’s a product like this by OWC called the Accelsior 8M2 that presumably uses a PCI-E switch to negotiate Gen3/4 to all the downstream storage and Gen 4 to pass to the host. Two oculink ports would be a good start to this but most dedicated storage systems have more than two drives for better redundancy options.
You could make a pretty killer DAS with at least four 4 U.2 drives and most enterprise U.2 can be powered directly off 12V 2A capable USB-C power bricks, very much in the same vein as the beefy USB-C supply that powers the Framework itself.
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to have this inside of some kind of dock?
I could see this make sense with an x8 port and maybe an additional m.2 inside the expansion bay, but otherwise I don’t see the point of putting the switch there.
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Looks like over 100 people went to the order page. Those 100 people will want to buy interposers soon - hopefully they will be available before the last batch gets out the door
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As @Christoph_Straten mentioned, this would be best place inside the end device rather than in this dock. Unfortunately, PCIe Switches have 0 focus in mobile solutions. There’s nothing out there (that I’m aware of) that you would want sitting in your laptop. Especially for PCIe Gen 4 and higher, even low port count switches are in the ~7W TDP area for the low end. In a small enclosure like a laptop that’s probably enough that you’re going to need both a heatsink and fan to deal with it. And it’s going to be sitting there chewing up that power in the laptop. It would have a massive effect on battery life and likely and up making it so you’d need to remove it any time you wanted to be away from your dock. Putting it in the end device lets it be responsible for its constant power draw and heat load, which is much better dealt with in a stationary object vs. a portable one.
The other issue is that since Avago (Broadcom) purchased PLX, both them, and Microsemi have almost entirely pulled out of the consumer / prosumer market for PCIe switches. Who remembers the old SLi boards with the built in PLX PCIe Switch to provide Quad SLi PCIe x16 lanes on a baord? Now these are almost exclusively used in Enterprise systems and the quantity agreements etc. make it fairly prohibitive for a low volume product using pcie switches. It’s going to cost a couple hundred dollars to get even a handful of the smallest PCIe switches in hand.
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Really interested in your work (already used your link for the 8x version lol), will this Oculink 4x + m2 SSD still have a usb 2.0 port and/or a DisplayPort ? I’m curious :]
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Yep, it will be identical to the 8x model except for the M.2 M key and Oculink connector
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