Framework has released schematics on GitHub for a card to allow for installing two additional M.2 drives in the expansion bay shell. IIRC they've hinted about plans to put that into production later this year.
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Thanks for commenting; I was trying to find this thread again and couldn't.
and later this year, Framework will ship a module you can stick inside the Expansion Bay Shell that adds two additional M.2 2280-or-less length SSD slots and “won’t be especially expensive.”
https://www.theverge.com/22665800/framework-laptop-16-hands-on-preview-modular-gaming-laptop
Yes, im fact since its x8, its theoretically possible to have multiple m.2 slots
And there's space for it in the bay?
M.2 Ssds are very snall. The expansion bay is far large enough to fit 2 2280 ssds horizontally, multiple if smaller, and the expansion bay does not have a required thickness, so if a company was crazy to allow for 4x m.2 slots, on paper it could. Framework is not designing all of the options, but the spec exists so that anyone is free to design something.
For instance, something some people want that is not just storage is larger battery, or an occulink port (ehich will convert the bay to a port fpr external gpus)
So I would just like unscrew the silvery bit on something like this and pop it in the expansion bay shell? Then I'd have room for two more SSDs on top of the one on the mainboard.
Its not a raw pci-e 16x lane, a 3rd party conpany would still have to design it based on the schematics that are open source on github. But the idea is yes, they would make something similar to that board, but instead of using a pci-e comnector, they would use the connector framework pushes, and then design their own enclosure to be able to fit into the expansion bay dimensions
Ahh, okay, thank you.
On the said topic though, at LTX, a prototype 2x m.2 slot up to 22110 (up to 110mm, basically any m.2 ssd) was shown. So I highly expect down the line, it will be offered for those who dont need a dgpu.
That is so cool!
I hope someone will make a trackpad that's a bit smaller and has physical buttons at the bottom. I wonder how hard that would be.
You're confusing the PCIe protocol and the PCIe connector. The connector is the "default" option for carrying the protocol, but any connector with enough pins can serve PCIe. For example, M.2, MiniPCIe, Thunderbolt, U.2, and many more use the PCIe protocol but a different connector. Framework just made another connector that works with the PCIe protocol. You can adapt it to full PCIe or M.2 if you want, but PCIe or M.2 cards can't just fit in without an adapter.
Thank you!