At NAB, Sonnet shows off its first Thunderbolt 5 products

In NAB 2025, Sonnet has shown off its first Thunderbolt 5 products, showcasing for the first time its mounting solutions for the Mac mini 2024 and a diverse range of Thunderbolt to PCIe card expansion systems and docking stations, as well as its PCIe USB and NVMe SSD adapter cards.

In Las Vegas, Sonnet has presented the Echo 13 Thunderbolt 5 SSD Dock, the first Thunderbolt 5 storage dock to go on sale, and the first Thunderbolt 5 model in the company's popular Echo family of docking stations. Echo 13 includes a Thunderbolt-certified NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD from Kingston Technology and is Available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB configurations. The dock supports data transfers of up to 6,000 MB/s when connected to a Thunderbolt 5 computer and connects peripheral devices to a computer via a single Thunderbolt 5 cable (which can also charge laptops with up to 140 watts of power).

xMac mini systems

Also new at this fair were its professional rack mounting and card expansion systems. Thunderbolt a PCIe xMac mini (2024+) for the new Apple Mac mini 2024 computers. Designed for professional workflow expansion, xMac mini (2024+) systems fit into standard 19-inch equipment racks and consist of a 2U rackmount enclosure, a mounting module for one or two Mac mini computers, plus a Thunderbolt to PCIe card expansion module that connects two or three PCIe cards to the computer via Thunderbolt cables.

PCIe card expansion options consist of the Echo II DV module, which connects two card slots to the computer via two Thunderbolt cables, an upcoming Thunderbolt 5 version of the Echo II DV module (which doubles the bandwidth over the previous generation module), and the Echo III module, which connects three PCIe card slots to a computer via a single Thunderbolt cable. Echo II DV modules feature dual Thunderbolt interfaces that provide full PCIe bandwidth to each slot when connected to two Thunderbolt ports on the Mac mini, which also provides independent PCIe bandwidth to each of its Thunderbolt ports. The Echo III module includes a PCIe bridge that distributes PCIe bandwidth across the module's three slots.

Lastly, Sonnet has showcased its next-generation external GPU, the eGPU Breakaway Box 850ex. With a Thunderbolt 5 controller, this product will offer twice the PCIe bandwidth (up to 6000 MB/s) of currently shipping external GPU chassis, to deliver PC workstation-level graphics performance with laptops and small form factor computers with Thunderbolt 5 ports.