SilverStone Releases ECU03 USB 3.1 Expansion Card

USB 3.1 is the newest generation and it brings quite a few improvements over the previous generation, such as the double bandwidth capabilities. The trouble with new generations of connectors is that you’ll also need to upgrade your system to use them, at least if you got an older one. Luckily you don’t need to upgrade your entire system, you can just use an expansion card. SilverStone just released the ECU03 which is such a card and it will give your system both a USB 3.1 Type A and a USB 3.1 Type C connector.

The SilverStone ECU03 offers 10 Gbps bandwidth for excellent throughput and transfer rates, especially when multiple external drives are attached simultaneously and otherwise would create bottlenecks. The ECU03 fully supports the eXtensible Host Controller Interface (XHCI) that makes it driverless for an easy installation. The expansion card also supports the USB Attached SCSI Protocol (UASP) that increases the overall throughput by handling multiple requests at the same time.

USB is by definition highly compatible and the card is naturally backward compatible with USB 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1 devices. Motherboard support is secured through the use of a PCI-Express Gen2 x2 interface that most stationary PCs will have available for use. Even small form factor (SFF) systems are supported as the card is designed to be low-profile. SilverStone also includes a low-profile expansion slot bracket with the card right out of the box.

Special Features

• Includes SuperSpeed USB 3.1 external USB Type-C connector
• SuperSpeed USB 3.1 with Type A and Type C ports
• PCI-E Gen2.0 x2, throughput up to 10Gbps
• Compliant with eXtensible Host Controller Interface (XHCI) specification Revision 1.1
• Compliant with USB Attached SCSI Protocol Revision 1.0 (UASP)
• Includes optional low-profile slot cover for supporting low profile cases