Icy Dock Introduces the ToughArmor MB840M2P-B: Hot-Swap for NVMe Drives

Icy Dock has introduced their new ToughArmor MB840M2P-B, a PCIe adapter that allows you to connect a single NVMe drive through an open PCIe port. To do so, it makes use of 4 PCIe 3.0 lanes, as per the NVMe protocol, but that's not its call to fame, however practical that may be in older systems without any M.2 form-factor support. Rather, the ability to hot swap NVMe storage drives is. Not all drives support such a feature: you'll have to check specific drive models that allow you to remove them from operation even whilst your PC is turned on.

The ToughArmor accessory from Icy Dock features a tool-less design meant to make it easier and faster for you to hot-swap your drives (30 mm to 110 mm in length), and the chassis is made of aluminium and features an integrated thermal pad to improve heat dissipation of your M.2 SSD, thus alleviating any throttling issues. A header allows you to connect it to your PC's HDD activity gauge. It's a pretty flexible design, featuring both full-height and low-profile PCIe expansion slot covers, and as other PCIe add-in cards, it can slot in any PCIe slot from the lowest-supported links (4 lanes) all the way to a 16-lane connector. No pricing information was available at time of writing.