The Node Pro Single-Slot PCIe to Thunderbolt 3 Expansion Chassis from Akitio is equipped with two Thunderbolt 3 ports and one PCIe 3.0 slot. This enclosure uses two Thunderbolt 3 ports, each of which provides bidirectional transfer speeds of up to 40 Gb/s, as well as one full-height, full-length, double-width PCIe slot that operates mechanically at x16 and electrically at x4. The advantage of this enclosure having a PCIe slot is that it will allow PCIe cards to be utilized with systems that do not have any available PCIe slots, such as the 2013 Mac Pro. Common applications of PCIe expansion cards include SAS/SATA and Fibre channel host bus adapters and RAID controllers, video capture cards, audio interface cards, 10GbE network cards, RED Rocket-X cards, and more.
While one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports is used to interface with your host system, the other may be used to daisy chain up to 5 additional Thunderbolt 3, 10 Gb/s USB 3.1, and DisplayPort devices. Each Thunderbolt 3 port also delivers 60W of power, and a dedicated DisplayPort 1.2 interface supports one 4K / 60 Hz display. Additionally, the PCIe slot provides up to 75W of power, but additional power can be supplied up to 400W with a pair of 8-pin (6+2) PCIe connectors.
Akitio's Node Pro supports systems running Windows 10 (64-bit) and macOS 10.12.4 and later with a Thunderbolt 3 port. It operates using an internal 500W power supply that runs using 100-240 VAC at 50-60 Hz. Included is a Thunderbolt 3 cable and protection is provided by a limited 2-year warranty.