is there any benefit to have the m.2 heatsink more than 2X the size of the thermal pad?

Happy Hopping

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https://shop.aquacomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=3659

so w/ this design, the heatsink goes in on top, and it looks like the heat sink surface area vs. the thermal pad is pretty much 3X the size. You can from the right size of the photo that the grey color pad is only about 1/3 the width of the heat sink

is there any benefit for that? as a basic heatsink you can buy, is the exact same size as the m.2 ssd
 
There can be thermal gains relized by a larger heatsink. Look at the size of a CPU die compared to the waterblock. With that said I don't believe a ssd will ever benefit from a cooling soulution like that as its tdp is significantly below the point where you need to be concerned about dissipating energy. A small heatsink will be overkill.
 
Heatsinks on SSDs are generally worthless. Generally any reviews that stated they saw throttling due to heat were for very early NVMe models that were being hammered in benchmarks not representative of real work.
 
those youtube review shows temp. drop on heatsink. What someone should do is a temperature difference review on larger heatsink vs. bubble gum size heatsink

but infering on Cdabc123 said, the heat generated by the chip set on a SSD shouldn't be remotely as high as the heat from a CPU, 1 way or the other. So I did buy a few cheap heatsink to give those review the benefit of the doubt, as I think I paid $15 or so per heatsink, and many motherboard manufacturer such as Asus, gigabyte all come w/ heatsink on their SSD m.2 slot now.
 
https://shop.aquacomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=3659

so w/ this design, the heatsink goes in on top, and it looks like the heat sink surface area vs. the thermal pad is pretty much 3X the size. You can from the right size of the photo that the grey color pad is only about 1/3 the width of the heat sink

is there any benefit for that? as a basic heatsink you can buy, is the exact same size as the m.2 ssd
Yes, M.2 works better with a heat sink, but you need just any cheap one.
I do not think that it is worth buying an expensive one.
Something like that is enough:

m.2 heat sink

 
This particular PCI-E to M.2 adapter has the lowest temps of all of my NVME drives, keeping the m.2 inside of it constantly less than 30c at idle and maybe 35c at load. I honestly think that has way more to do with the ability to have airflow on 3 sides of it than anything particularly special about the actual heatsink, which seems to be just as cheaply made as those $5 m.2 heatsinks linked above which do well enough to not throttle any of my drives.
https://www.amazon.com/RIITOP-PCIe-NVMe-Adapter-Converter/dp/B07GFDVXVJ

So I suspect that particular adapter/cooler in the OP would do an extremely good job at keeping any M.2 in it extremely cool, but I also doubt there would be any performance improvement because of it.
 
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If anyone remembers, I used an old DDR heatsink from Thermaltake on my M.2 drive. Added a thermalpad from the kit and a set of small zipties and it worked insanely well on a PNY CS2030 heater.

These are the same exact size as the M.2 drive. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thermaltak...-VGA-memory-and-DDR-memory-Blue-/182386015982

Wow thats a blast from the past, I used that exact kit on the PC133 memory in my old P3 rig back in the day. Mainly because it looked cool, plus it went well with the blue cold cathode it had in the case.
 
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I have a 500gb Western Digital SN850 that typically runs pretty hot (around 50-60c). I noticed once I swapped it in that I would get random instances where it would not detect the SSD after a reboot, which is an issue several people are experiencing. I ended up installing this:
https://www.amazon.com/ineo-Rocket-...me+cooler&qid=1623421371&s=electronics&sr=1-5

Now my SSD sits around 30c and 'might' go up to 40-45c on heavy read/writes. My random non-detect is virtually gone now too. Yes, cooling the NVME is beneficial :)
 
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I have a 500gb Western Digital SN850 that typically runs pretty hot (around 50-60c). I noticed once I swapped it in that I would get random instances where it would not detect the SSD after a reboot, which is an issue several people are experiencing. I ended up installing this:
https://www.amazon.com/ineo-Rocket-...me+cooler&qid=1623421371&s=electronics&sr=1-5

Now my SSD sits around 30c and 'might' go up to 40-45c on heavy read/writes. My random non-detect is virtually gone now too. Yes, cooling the NVME is beneficial :)
Can't install that in my laptop, it came with a couple of thermal pads between the SSD and MOBO, I might get a small finned heat spreader for it, but have to measure first.
 
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https://shop.aquacomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=3659

so w/ this design, the heatsink goes in on top, and it looks like the heat sink surface area vs. the thermal pad is pretty much 3X the size. You can from the right size of the photo that the grey color pad is only about 1/3 the width of the heat sink

is there any benefit for that? as a basic heatsink you can buy, is the exact same size as the m.2 ssd
Thermal flow can be assimilated with that of the electrical current one. Temperature to voltage, heat flow to current. and thermal resistance to electrical resistance. So, temperature drop is equal to heat flow multiplied by thermal resistance. If you want lower temperature drop for a certain heat flow you have to drop thermal resistance.
There are 3 ways that heat flows: conduction, convection, and radiation. The first appears when 2 objects are in direct contact, the second when an object is in contact with a fluid, and the third by electromagnetic (generally IR) radiation. All three ways can be assimilated to three resistors in parallel connection, but usually just one is small enough, so that the other ones can be ignored.
For a thermal pad the heat transfer is practically by conduction, of which thermal resistance is many times smaller than the other two ways.
For a heat sink the heat transfer is mainly by convection, but radiation can be significant if the fluid is moving slowly. That's why passive heat sinks are black (the perfect radiator), as natural convection of air is not very efficient.
If forced convection is implemented (fans), the thermal resistance drops dramatically, and radiation can be ignored (no need for black heat sinks).
In conclusion, the surface area of the thermal pad can be many times smaller than that of the heat sink to have comparable thermal resistance.
 
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