FREMONT, CA – October 29, 2025 – HighPoint Technologies, Inc., a leading manufacturer of high-performance PCIe storage and connectivity solutions, has unveiled the newest member of its industry leading PCIe Switch Solutions – the Rocket 1624A, a compact, high-efficiency variant of the acclaimed PCIe Gen5 x16 Rocket 1628A Switch Adapter.
The Rocket 1624A redefines PCIe scalability by combining dedicated NVMe storage connectivity with full-bandwidth PCIe expansion capability for GPUs, specialized accelerators, and other high-performance peripherals — all through a cost-effective Gen5 switching platform.
Priced competitively at USD $899, the Rocket 1624A is designed for system integrators, datacenter administrators, and solution providers seeking to unlock the full potential of PCIe Gen5 connectivity by enhancing the versatility and value of the target computing platform.
Revolutionizing PCIe Expansion for the Gen5 Era
“The Rocket 1624A is a direct response to the market’s demand for more flexible and Cost-performance Gen5 PCIe Expansion solutions,” said May Hwang, HighPoint’s Director of Marketing. “With its dual MCIO x8 architecture, customers can expand their system beyond conventional storage — enabling GPUs, network cards, and specialized accelerators to operate at full Gen5 bandwidth from a single adapter.”
Key Features and Market-Leading Innovations
True PCIe Bus Expansion Capability: The Rocket 1624A’s innovative hardware architecture, powered by a Broadcom PCIe Gen5 Switch IC, enables the adapter to function as a PCIe slot expander. Each of the dual MCIO 8i ports can be paired with HighPoint’s MCIO-PCIEX16-G5
Dual MCIO x8 to PCIe x16 expansion bridge card, effectively creating two additional Gen5 x8 or a single x16 slot for GPUs or I/O cards — a gamechanger for compact computing environments.
Dual MCIO x8 Ports for Maximum Flexibility: Each MCIO x8 port provides a dedicated PCIe Gen5 x8 (64 Gb/s) connection, enabling IT administrators and solution providers to design and implement flexible hardware topologies:
· NVMe Connectivity: Directly supports up to four U.2/U.3 or E3.S NVMe SSDs, or as many as 16 when paired with UBM storage backplanes via customizable firmware packages.
· Peripheral Expansion: Add a single x16 or up to two x8 GPUs, NICs, DPUs, or FPGA accelerators for compute-intensive or networking workloads.
This dual-port MCIO configuration, which utilizes industry standard SFF-TA-1016 / 9402 connectivity, ensures optimal signal integrity and scalability for both internal and external PCIe Gen5 infrastructures.
Uncompromised Gen5 Bandwidth & Compatibility:
· PCIe 5.0 x16 Host Interface: Provides up to 64 GB/s aggregate throughput, delivering real-world sustained performance for AI, ML, and data-intensive applications.
· Native OS NVMe Driver Support: No proprietary driver installation is required, enabling true plug-and-play integration for Windows, Linux, and VMware platforms.
· Flexible Deployment: Ideal for both storage and compute expansion scenarios.
Purpose-Built for Software-Defined Storage (SDS) & Enterprise Infrastructure: The Rocket 1624A’s switch-based architecture provides direct NVMe drive visibility at the OS level — making it the ideal hardware foundation for Software-Defined Storage (SDS) frameworks:
· Supported SDS Platforms: ZFS, Microsoft Storage Spaces, Linux mdadm, TrueNAS, Proxmox.
· Target Applications: Cloud and Edge storage nodes, Virtual Machine hosting, scalable enterprise data centers, and AI/ML compute clusters.