Is Cooling necessary on M.2 SSD?

Is cooling necessary on M.2 SSD (SATA or NVME)

  • Yes

    Votes: 22 44.0%

  • No

    Votes: 23 46.0%

  • with or without cooling, No difference

    Votes: 5 10.0%
  • Total voters
    50
Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 1, 2004
Messages
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after watching this video



and reading this:

https://hardforum.com/threads/caution-50-performance-on-m-2-ssds-and-itx-boards.1880322/

I found this:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...&cm_re=m.2_cooling-_-9SIA9F94Z10596-_-Product

1) first of all, what's the point to have the back side of the M.2 cool when the back side cool plate is kissing the motherboard?

2) regardless, if you have bottom 140 mm fans, 140mm or 200 mm front fan(s), 140mm or 200 mm top fans, do we still need Alphacool?

3) if so, does Alphacool even works? According to their german website, ti's a piece of Aluminum, nothing more

and is there enough room for that back plate for installation on most motherboard?

https://www.alphacool.com/shop/-neue-produkte-/20838/alphacool-hdx-m.2-ssd-m01-80mm-schwarz
 
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say I don't use the drive heavily, say it's just normal use. And say I use a heatsink / bottom fan etc., is there any study out there that shows how many more year I'll get out of the drive? As I don't want the drive to die and lost all data
 
I don't think it'd make much difference, but for $20, and I like alphacool products, I'll slap one on anyway when I finally get a 960 heh
 
That video is specific to the 950 Pro. Depending on how much air flow your case has, most other M2 SSDs shouldn't require a special cooler. However a lot of them do get pretty hot under high usage for extended times, like 20+ minutes. No one has their drive under continuously high load for 20 mins.
 
Its such a cheap measure to ensure consistent performance when you need it most that I lean towards yes but its not like it won't function at all without additional cooling.
 
I don't think it's required for day-to-day use. Might be helpful if you've got a SSD benchmarking fetish though.

That being said, I had a pile of little heatsinks for RasberryPi machines on hand, so I stuck a few on my SSD.
 
I doubt the product will do much, not much in the way of adding surface area, as they are just heat spreaders really, no fins or anything, just a big block. This adds thermal capacity for those shorter bursts to keep temps in check, but if the drive sees heavy use, it probably will not help much with temps, or, just like in the case of most RAM heat spreaders, increase temps. Lots of people still think even those do something, but outside of a few with actual fins on them, they didn't do anything or made it worse. I would pick up some stick on heat sinks over this, and/or add a fan over the area if I was that worried.
 
BlueFireIce said:
I doubt the product will do much, not much in the way of adding surface area, as they are just heat spreaders really, no fins or anything, just a big block. This adds thermal capacity for those shorter bursts to keep temps in check, but if the drive sees heavy use, it probably will not help much with temps, or, just like in the case of most RAM heat spreaders, increase temps. Lots of people still think even those do something, but outside of a few with actual fins on them, they didn't do anything or made it worse. I would pick up some stick on heat sinks over this, and/or add a fan over the area if I was that worried.
Click to expand...

but every M.2 SSD has different chip size, how do you know what / where to get the heatsink?

Anyhoo, did any of you read the review at newegg? The guy said it greatly reduces the heat of the M.2 SSD. He said the
PRIOR - Average temp of my m.2 card was around 33 degrees C. At full read/write for a few minutes it stepped up to 68 degrees.. ouch! Hot!
AFTER - Average temp of my m.2 card is now 29 degrees C, while not a lot cooler, it is cooler. I've also never seen it step over 46 degrees while reading and writing, that's a huge difference.
Click to expand...

now, are you guys saying heatsink can drop even more, by how much though?

As to high speed transfer over 20 min. I have to do that once when I first got the M.2 SSD, and transferred the old data to the new one.

EDIT: I found something else:



memorypack.com.tw, looks loose, but if it's tight, then it's a heatsink, and according to you guys, better than Alphacool



there is also the above, what I don't understand is, why don't people remove that warranty sticker, so the thermal pad can stick on the chips?
 
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People don't remove it out of fear or not wanting to void warranty. Yes, the label will hurt thermal transfer. As for the review he stated a "few minutes", that is a light load and temps are well in spec, a few minutes of load is short enough for the slab of metal to retain. Run it under heavy use, and that will probably change, but who knows, you might see some drops here and there.

Yes, those videos show a better cooler, those have many times the surface area. You can get any number of them off ebay, or just buy some super cheap HS strips of the right size or cut them yourself and strap them on with some thermal tape or some thermal pads and a few rubber bands. Really is not that hard to do if this is that big of a deal to you. ebay options are under $10 shipped, or if you do bulk HS you do on your own, probably $5 a pop. The ones that I actually think might be worth it are the ones thin enough to be mounted to a M.2 in a laptop, where airflow is already at a premium, and run pretty hot anyway in such a tight space.
 
I'm somewhat interested in this topic. I use both M.2 slots in the Asus Z270I. The underside, which has a Samsung 960 Evo NVMe drive (boot drive), usually runs at 36-38c (same as several other components, so is likely the internal case temp) and peaks at about 40c. Not really worried about that. The topside Crucial MX300 1TB SATA (games mostly) idles at around 42c (44c with Asus' fancy heatsink which I've since removed) but with the GPU at full load it reaches 49-50c on a warm day (51c with the heatsink). I'm not too concerned with that either (laptops/tablets get that hot, plus I expect to swap it out for a NVMe drive in the next few years) and am not aware of any throttling, but like many of you, I always seek lower temps.

rehab said:
https://www.amazon.com/Enzotech-BMR...8&qid=1495116112&sr=8-8&keywords=m.2+heatsink

What I went with
Click to expand...

May I ask what are your before/after temps?
 
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It was about a 20 degree change under normal load, I can get exact temps once im home from work.
 
BlueFireIce said:
People don't remove it out of fear or not wanting to void warranty. Yes, the label will hurt thermal transfer. As for the review he stated a "few minutes", that is a light load and temps are well in spec, a few minutes of load is short enough for the slab of metal to retain. Run it under heavy use, and that will probably change, but who knows, you might see some drops here and there.

Yes, those videos show a better cooler, those have many times the surface area. You can get any number of them off ebay, or just buy some super cheap HS strips of the right size or cut them yourself and strap them on with some thermal tape or some thermal pads and a few rubber bands. Really is not that hard to do if this is that big of a deal to you. ebay options are under $10 shipped, or if you do bulk HS you do on your own, probably $5 a pop. The ones that I actually think might be worth it are the ones thin enough to be mounted to a M.2 in a laptop, where airflow is already at a premium, and run pretty hot anyway in such a tight space.
Click to expand...

Overall, I like the Memory Pack design, the one at ebay, less than $10 is a glue on solution, it doesn't have the clip to lock the heatsink. I already use google to search the Memory Pack, surprisingly, noone sells it. At whosale, it's only $0.9, but you have to buy thousands.

If anyone sees where to buy the Memory Pack design, let m know.

I have a fan controller that shows in 6 different spot of my PC, they are at 23.7 to 31 deg. C

I really should have stick at least 1 or 2 of those thermal sensor to the SSD. I'll do it for my next PC
 
Happy Hopping said:
Overall, I like the Memory Pack design, the one at ebay, less than $10 is a glue on solution, it doesn't have the clip to lock the heatsink. I already use google to search the Memory Pack, surprisingly, noone sells it. At whosale, it's only $0.9, but you have to buy thousands.

If anyone sees where to buy the Memory Pack design, let m know.

I have a fan controller that shows in 6 different spot of my PC, they are at 23.7 to 31 deg. C

I really should have stick at least 1 or 2 of those thermal sensor to the SSD. I'll do it for my next PC
Click to expand...

They don't glue on, they are thermal tape, easy to put on and take off. The others can be used with a thermal pad and some rubber bands for net to nothing and work better than the one you linked. This is not a heatsink on a CPU with thermal paste, they all use thermal pads or tape and only need light contact. If you want to search up and down and spend 3 times as much, that is your choice however.
 
What I like about the "Awesome" M2 heatsink is that it actually clips onto the M2 drive. Looks like it does make better contact with some sort of pressure because it "locks" into place. Also with fins it gets better airflow. Pretty neat.
 
BlurFireIce, I agree w/ Nebulous, I have a piece of comfort if it's clip on. And I like the memory tech heatsink better than the Awesome brand
 
The issue have only been with NVME SSDs due to their increased speed and power consumption that made them throttle. With newer less power hungry controllers it seems the problem is slowly going away.
 
Happy Hopping said:
the heat sink is nice and long sticking out in an uniform matter.
Click to expand...

Not sure what that has to do with anything, the other options will cool just as well and are made in the same manner, and not sure where the piece of comfort comes from, but if thats what you want to spend your money on, go for it.
 
do you have good air flow? yes? you will be fine....no? than fix your crappy case. mine if under my 980TI and i run my fan at least at 50% on my GPU and no matter how long or how hard i thrash the drive it never over heats. GPU fan turns off....it melts.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Not sure what that has to do with anything, the other options will cool just as well and are made in the same manner, and not sure where the piece of comfort comes from, but if thats what you want to spend your money on, go for it.
Click to expand...

all the good heat sink, is a vertical metal sticking forward. That $8.7 cheap heat sink, is the only heat sink I've seen that is a T shape. So I feel better w/ the other 99% heatsinks, ie., the way that Memory Pack makes it
 
Happy Hopping said:
all the good heat sink, is a vertical metal sticking forward. That $8.7 cheap heat sink, is the only heat sink I've seen that is a T shape. So I feel better w/ the other 99% heatsinks, ie., the way that Memory Pack makes it
Click to expand...

Totally lost on what you are talking about.
 
I have a fan blowing over my whole MB. It also helps cool the M2.
 
I would at least keep a fan blowing over it. Heat can have an effect on NAND.
 
well, here's 1 way you don't need cooling on M.2 SSD. I never heard of a vertical slot before, where do you buy these?

 
My m.2 has no heatsinks on it. It is slotted right under my 980ti. My cpu/gpu both have AIO and I have a case fan profile set up to only kick in at a certain temp (can't remember what temp), this was mainly to deal with noise. Even in the summer my case fans never kick in and my case doesn't seem to get too hot inside (Air 540).

The m.2 typically gets up to 50c during gaming. I use it fully expecting it to randomly die someday. Nothing of value is really stored on that drive besides the OS and gobs and gobs of the most hardcore pornography you can imagine.

I've been using the m.2 for a few years now. I have never benched it when it's 50c, so I'm not sure how much it affects performance. My games run off separate SSDs so I'm not worried about how hot it gets.
 
st4rk said:
My m.2 has no heatsinks on it. It is slotted right under my 980ti. My cpu/gpu both have AIO and I have a case fan profile set up to only kick in at a certain temp (can't remember what temp), this was mainly to deal with noise. Even in the summer my case fans never kick in and my case doesn't seem to get too hot inside (Air 540).

The m.2 typically gets up to 50c during gaming. I use it fully expecting it to randomly die someday. Nothing of value is really stored on that drive besides the OS and gobs and gobs of the most hardcore pornography you can imagine.

I've been using the m.2 for a few years now. I have never benched it when it's 50c, so I'm not sure how much it affects performance. My games run off separate SSDs so I'm not worried about how hot it gets.
Click to expand...

Most drives don't even throttle until you hit ~70c. I think 50c is fine. My M.2 drives idle at or just below 40 and get up to 45-48. That appears to be pretty typical for M.2s. Though, I've got a 1080 Ti on the way to replace my GTX 970. I'm curious to see what the extra 50-100W of power does to my case (and SSD) temps.
 
STR said:
Most drives don't even throttle until you hit ~70c. I think 50c is fine. My M.2 drives idle at or just below 40 and get up to 45-48. That appears to be pretty typical for M.2s. Though, I've got a 1080 Ti on the way to replace my GTX 970. I'm curious to see what the extra 50-100W of power does to my case (and SSD) temps.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure sure running my case fans didn't affect the temps either.
 
st4rk said:
I'm pretty sure sure running my case fans didn't affect the temps either.
Click to expand...

Yeah...Maxing my case fans will drop my SSD idles from 39-40c to 35-36c, but doesn't seem to do much under load. Seems these things will run themselves up to 47-50c under load no matter what. But like I said, it's well below throttle temps, seems pretty typical, and within mfg. operating specs. I'm pretty sure they'll still last 5+ years.

More important, I'm not sure what you can do to change any of this. Most stick-on heatsinks seem to only help get drives down TO 50c.

I've seen M.2 waterblocks...
 
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STR said:
Yeah...Maxing my case fans will drop my SSD idles from 39-40c to 35-36c, but doesn't seem to do much under load. Seems these things will run themselves up to 47-50c under load no matter what. But like I said, it's well below throttle temps, seems pretty typical, and within mfg. operating specs. I'm pretty sure they'll still last 5+ years.

More important, I'm not sure what you can do to change any of this. Most stick-on heatsinks seem to only help get drives down TO 50c.

I've seen M.2 waterblocks...
Click to expand...

haha, I can see it now : mini AIO coolers for M.2!
 
Cheap easy thing I did with my passive build is stack some thermal pads on the controller chip so it makes contact with the motherboard tray effectively creating a huge heatsink, ssd stays nice and cool. Ofc will only work with m.2 connector on backside of mobo.
 
the max rated temp for these M.2s is 70C and when people test em they see them go to 73C. I have one thats underneath the GPU, im kinda scared of ever getting one.
 
Happy Hopping said:
well, here's 1 way you don't need cooling on M.2 SSD. I never heard of a vertical slot before, where do you buy these?
Click to expand...

My mobo (in sig) features a vertical mount for the 2nd m.2 slot. The mount hardware (as shown in your video) comes with the mainboard. Note: you can't just buy the mount - the slot has to be designed for the SSD to be installed sticking off of the mobo like that and needs to have the mounting points for the mount hardware.
 
st4rk said:
My m.2 has no heatsinks on it. It is slotted right under my 980ti. My cpu/gpu both have AIO and I have a case fan profile set up to only kick in at a certain temp (can't remember what temp), this was mainly to deal with noise. Even in the summer my case fans never kick in and my case doesn't seem to get too hot inside (Air 540).

The m.2 typically gets up to 50c during gaming. I use it fully expecting it to randomly die someday. Nothing of value is really stored on that drive besides the OS and gobs and gobs of the most hardcore pornography you can imagine.

.
Click to expand...

My mind temporary went blank for a moment, what's AIO again?

And since they are the "most hardcore pornography", shouldn't they run hotter than 50 deg. C? :smuggrin:
 
All In One (rad/pump/waterblock)
Happy Hopping said:
And since they are the "most hardcore pornography", shouldn't they run hotter than 50 deg. C? :smuggrin:
Click to expand...
Well this is HardOCP, so watersports?



I grabbed a few packs of cheap little memory heatsinks with sticky thermal pads a few years back (and the drive gets some air movement from a case fan).
Doesn't really do much for idle temps, but it helps during usage. I wouldn't say they're necessary, but I had 'em around so...
Edit: I remember when I was testing out the heatsinks, it took about 10-15 mins before I hit 70C.
 
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