MSI’s New Add-in Card Looks Like a GPU & Supports Two Hot-Swap PCIe Gen 5 SSD Slots

MSI is now one of the only manufacturers building consumer-friendly hot swap expansion cards.’

MSI has just introduced an all-new M.2 expander card, which the company is calling the M.2 Xpander-Aero Slider Gen 5 (a mouthful at best).

The expansion card features a matt black finish, with a single fan cooler to help cool the hot-running Gen 5 PCIe SSD’s it can take. Both slots can take the full size (but uncommon) 22110-size M.2 drives. At a glance, you would think this expansion card was an entry-level GPU, looking remarkably like a GTX 1650. The expansion card automatically turns it’s fan off if no drives are detected. It also supports manually turning the cooling fan off for PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4 drives that don’t require active cooling.

If all you need is two additional M.2 slots, this expansion card is perfect for you. It is the only hot swappable M.2 expansion card we know of. Making it ideal to quickly transfer large amounts of data for on-the-go use.

Usually, hot-swappable drives are only seen in the enterprise/server space, but it has its uses in the consumer space as well. Pricing has not been disclosed yet, but it is expected for MSI’s new expansion card to be on the more expensive side due to the Gen 5 hot swap support, and the fact that it is currently the only consumer device with that capability.