New adapters offer substantial industrial PCIe expansion — HighPoint's Rocket 1628A and 1528D support deploying up to 32 NVMe drives and 8 PCIe devices in a single slot

Thursday, July 17, 2025

HighPoint Technologies, which specializes in storage solutions, just introduced two adapters that massively expand your system's storage capacity through a single PCIe slot. According to the company's press release, the Rocket 1628A and 1528D NVMe Switch Adapters let you directly plug up to eight PCIe devices into one PCIe 5.0 x16 or PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, or up to 32 NVMe drives via a UBM-compliant backplane.

These adapters are primarily designed to give systems with limited space and PCIe/NVMe slots more connectivity options. Aside from accommodating NVMe drives, they're also designed to work with GPUs, NICs, capture cards, and storage controllers, allowing you to attach all the tools you need, even if your workstation has a limited number of slots. Aside from this, HighPoint's PCIe switching architecture and flexible lane allocation optimize the connection for all attached devices, splitting the x16 bandwidth into multiple x4 and x8 lanes to avoid bottlenecks.

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Rocket 1628A

Rocket 1528D

Bus Interface

PCIe 5.0 x16

PCIe 4.0 x16

Connector Type

MCIO (SFF-1016 8x)

SlimSAS (SFF8654 8x)

Connector Pinout Definition

SFF-9402 Compliant

Number of Devices

8 (direct) / 32 (via backplane)

8 (direct)

SSD Form Factor

U.2 / U.3 / E3.S (via cabling accessories)

U.2 / U.3

LED Indicators

Intelligent, Self-Diagnostic

Form Factor

LP-MD2

Dimensions (mm)

155 x 68.9

Weight (lbs)

0.75

Power (watts)

16.28

29.58

Aside from those features, the company also included several quality-of-life improvements. The devices offer plug-and-play compatibility — they use industry standard MCIO and SlimSAS interfaces, allowing them to slot in on existing hardware, and thei r LP MD2 form factor ensures they'll fit in 1U and 2U rackmount servers. They also work with both x86 and ARM platforms and are natively supported by operating systems with NVMe driver support. You can also check the status of each card without taking it apart, thanks to its LED status lights for diagnostics. But in case you need to take them apart for service, the 1628A and 1528D offer hot-swap capabilities, ensuring that your system remains online.

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The company recommends these adapters for multiple applications, including data center and edge computing that need high-density storage, AI and machine learning infrastructure that demand multi-GPU setups, industrial automation systems with multiple PCIe sensor arrays, compact professional workstations with limited PCIe expandability, and custom storage solutions. However, these adapters are designed for enterprise use, so they are generally meant for EDSFF E1.S and E3.S SSDs, not the typical M.2 drives you'll find in your nearby computer store.

The Rocket 1628A is now available on the HighPoint store for $1,499, while the Rocket 1528D is much more affordable (although slower) at just $699. Nevertheless, these devices are the perfect solution for those who require more PCIe slots but are constrained by space and limited expandability in their current system.

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