Bat's How To: Taming the wild M.2 SSD

[Nebulous]

Dang batz, you're like me saving those sinks from back in the day! Most of mine came from SVC and the egg with the few exceptions from amazon. Always good to have cooling options. Either way you go, those M2's will be cooled right.

 

[ratbuddy]

How do you like vertical M.2 socket on your asus mobo ? ... for me it's a design fail. Somehow other manufacturers found place between PCIE slots and ASUS couldn't. It's even worse when you find out that more expensive motherboards share the same PCB.

Eww! I hate having my NVME drives sitting under video cards. There's nowhere for the heat from the drive to escape. It also limits how much of a heatsink I can put on them. I'd much prefer a slot that stands up in the case airflow.

 

[batboy]

I've had a couple others say that too. It's just in a bad location on my motherboard. Maybe I'll grow to love it, who knows? Guess I'll find out. Shutting down to install the drives now. Of course I have to take half the computer apart to get to the M.2 sockets. I've been told several times now that I won't be able to do this. We'll see...

 

[EarthDog]

Ive had one vertical a few months on x299 prime deluxe... i dont have the bracket on it. Just sits there.. in a tjermaltake p5.

 

[Woomack]

For me vertical mount is real issue as ssd can be damaged by mistake when you replace parts more often. This socket on the TUF is near the power connector and DIMMs, also near graphics card. I could be good idea if it was in some other place and protected in better way.

SATA M.2 SSD don't need additional cooling and some NVMe also don't need that. Even though some users think that 60-70°C is really high temp then these chips can work up to 90+. If I'm right then issues with overheating M.2 SSD were only related to Samsung NVMe SSD and not even to all of them. If there are graphics cards with fans then they're cooling air near SSD so if SSD isn't blocked by something then should be fine.

 

[ratbuddy]

Woomack, maybe some NVMe drives don't need cooling, but my Samsungs sure do, or they throttle. Look at a Vega card. It's basically a big metal box with airflow at the ends only. I had a Samsung NVMe drive sitting directly under one of those. There was almost no airflow whatsoever, and the drive was absolutely thermally limited. These drives hit a thermal wall fast, and need to be kept cool in order to perform their best. On my 1080 Ti machine, it's a big honkin' three slot cooler, but directs basically no airflow to the area underneath the card - and why should it? It's a GPU cooling solution, not a NVMe slot cooling solution.

 

[Nebulous]

I know my PNY was a freakin' heater to say the least. Mine was running well over 85c and started to throttle. Stereo555's was even worse. I know alot of other NVMe drives need little to no cooling at all tho, but these PNY drives are the worse I've seen temp wise.

 

[Woomack]

Woomack, maybe some NVMe drives don't need cooling, but my Samsungs sure do, or they throttle. Look at a Vega card. It's basically a big metal box with airflow at the ends only. I had a Samsung NVMe drive sitting directly under one of those. There was almost no airflow whatsoever, and the drive was absolutely thermally limited. These drives hit a thermal wall fast, and need to be kept cool in order to perform their best. On my 1080 Ti machine, it's a big honkin' three slot cooler, but directs basically no airflow to the area underneath the card - and why should it? It's a GPU cooling solution, not a NVMe slot cooling solution.

As I said, there are some exceptions but generally only Samsung needs additional cooling and many of their NVMe SSD are overheating.
Nebulous is reporting issues with PNY which is about the same as my Patriot SSD but I haven't seen more than ~70°C on my drives while he saw 85+ and throttling. Hard to say if there is higher voltage or something else as used chips are about the same.

 

[Sentential]

As I said, there are some exceptions but generally only Samsung needs additional cooling and many of their NVMe SSD are overheating.
Nebulous is reporting issues with PNY which is about the same as my Patriot SSD but I haven't seen more than ~70°C on my drives while he saw 85+ and throttling. Hard to say if there is higher voltage or something else as used chips are about the same.

Silicon image NVME controller also needs active cooling, as does Marvell so which one are you using that doesn't because that pretty much covers all of them other than Toshiba which also needs active cooling.

 

[Woomack]

I have Phison controller in my SSD ( quite popular in cheaper NVMe SSD ). I haven't heard any temp issues about other controllers than Samsung even though some were passing 75°C.
Most users say that SSD needs active cooling because they see ~70°C while max for constant work of commercial grade components is at least 80-85°C.
Most of popular SSD are also in laptops where is no additional airflow. Even some Samsungs are in laptops without additional cooling. I just see no reason to panic about temps which are not causing any damage to SSD or performance drop because of throttling.
I was testing most controllers and none of them needed active cooling. I wasn't testing only Samsung NVMe SSD but there were a lot of reports about overheating.

Here is Silicon Motion controller - idle 30°C, max 59°C ... is that hot ?
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-ssd-600p-series-512gb-nvme-ssd-review_188324/9
Newer SM/ADATA and also 59°C but this one comes with heatsink http://www.funkykit.com/reviews/storage/adata-xpg-sx7000-m-2-pcie-gen3x4-256gb-ssd-review/4/
Marvell which I was testing was not much worse. I had no issues with HyperX Predator or some other SSD without any additional airflow. My Phison runs at about 70°C max without any airflow and about 45°C with alphacool heatsink/no airflow.
I can't find any new review with Marvell based SSD without airflow. Here is only 44°C with 120mm fan:
http://www.legitreviews.com/wd-black-512gb-m-2-pcie-nvme-ssd-review_191242/3

 

[EarthDog]

Weird... my toshiba doesn't need active cooling... Though it is sticking straight up out of the board.

 

[Woomack]

I wanted to ask you about it as I saw your review but haven't seen info about temps. Actually in most reviews there are no reports about temps under load.

 

[EarthDog]

Currently in a Thermaltake P5, its sitting idle at 34C. No heatsinks, nada.

Going to slam 10s of GB over to it and report back.......................

Done.. 76GB about 4 mins @ 44C max.. no heatsinks, no direct fan or airflow... ambient is around 23C

 

[batboy]

Only one temp sensor? All of mine have two.

 

[EarthDog]

Seems so. Doesnt change the point of posting that, however.

 

[Sentential]

I have Phison controller in my SSD ( quite popular in cheaper NVMe SSD ). I haven't heard any temp issues about other controllers than Samsung even though some were passing 75°C.
Most users say that SSD needs active cooling because they see ~70°C while max for constant work of commercial grade components is at least 80-85°C.
Most of popular SSD are also in laptops where is no additional airflow. Even some Samsungs are in laptops without additional cooling. I just see no reason to panic about temps which are not causing any damage to SSD or performance drop because of throttling.
I was testing most controllers and none of them needed active cooling. I wasn't testing only Samsung NVMe SSD but there were a lot of reports about overheating.

Here is Silicon Motion controller - idle 30°C, max 59°C ... is that hot ?
http://www.legitreviews.com/intel-ssd-600p-series-512gb-nvme-ssd-review_188324/9
Newer SM/ADATA and also 59°C but this one comes with heatsink http://www.funkykit.com/reviews/storage/adata-xpg-sx7000-m-2-pcie-gen3x4-256gb-ssd-review/4/
Marvell which I was testing was not much worse. I had no issues with HyperX Predator or some other SSD without any additional airflow. My Phison runs at about 70°C max without any airflow and about 45°C with alphacool heatsink/no airflow.
I can't find any new review with Marvell based SSD without airflow. Here is only 44°C with 120mm fan:
http://www.legitreviews.com/wd-black-512gb-m-2-pcie-nvme-ssd-review_191242/3

I can only speak from my experience and the SI m2 I used would not shed heat on the laptop I used it with. It eventually hit 78C idle in windows and started throwing smart errors after about an hour of use so I disagree about them not needing substantial airflow. Substantial perhaps not by *OUR* standards but by others yes. The reason I point this out is for all the lurkers out there. I thought the same thing about the SI or Marvell, nope nope nope. We *might* see laptops using 3rd gen NVME drives without issue but not the current 2nd gen ones. Samsung ironically has the best thermal profile for low/restricted airflow in mobile applications and are the only "safe-ish" drive I know out there that can be used in a laptop without serious issues; granted it'll throttle itself into oblivion most of the time but it is at least smart enough to do that rather than blowing itself up.

Weird... my toshiba doesn't need active cooling... Though it is sticking straight up out of the board.

You've probably got enough case ventilation to keep it cool enough to prevent throttling. Tosh boards have the strongest history of overheating problems which is why they're dirt cheap on ebay. Most were pulled from returned/RMA'ed laptops, nothing wrong with the drive just the design plus the restricted airflow that doomed them. I'm working on putting together a VM/Compute/Mining box and that's what I'm going to use as it's primary drive (a 256GB XG3 from ebay).

 

[EarthDog]

I mentioned my case. It has literally no airflow. It is open air, but zero airflow.

Thermaltake p5.


It also didnt throttle when it was in a case either.. thermaltake core x9.

 

[Sentential]

I mentioned my case. It has literally no airflow. It is open air, but zero airflow.

Thermaltake p5.

Not sure why you're fighting me on this point but OK here ya go:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/toshiba-512-gb-nvme-drive-temperature.804048/
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=275902.0

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/6pdl4a

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-alienware-17-r4-owners-lounge.797457/page-420

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/5dml6j

http://alienbabeltech.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=760
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2828223/overheating-ssd-sata-ssd.html
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkP...I-e-NVMe-SSD-risk-of-overheating/td-p/2262307
http://www.overclock.net/t/1597862/diy-cooling-for-an-m-2-ssd-in-a-laptop
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...-HELP!-Temperature-M-2-SSD-Drive-!-Optimus-V2

It does need cooling, you just have enough space/airflow or perhaps your ambient temp is low enough. I'm telling you right now the XG3 was one of the worst offenders as far as heat issues. Go look at how many of them are on ebay and see for yourself.

 

[EarthDog]

Figthing? Sharing my experience with it.. quite simple.

Maybe dont stuff the damn things under a gpu and it wouldnt happen as much.

Half those links are in laptops.... come on.....


I dont know what an xg3 is.. i have an rd400. Ambient was 23c. Seeing these on ebay means nothing.

 

[Sentential]

I can only speak from my experience and the SI m2 I used would not shed heat on the laptop I used it with. It eventually hit 78C idle in windows and started throwing smart errors after about an hour of use so I disagree about them not needing substantial airflow. Substantial perhaps not by *OUR* standards but by others yes. The reason I point this out is for all the lurkers out there. I thought the same thing about the SI or Marvell, nope nope nope. We *might* see laptops using 3rd gen NVME drives without issue but not the current 2nd gen ones. Samsung ironically has the best thermal profile for low/restricted airflow in mobile applications and are the only "safe-ish" drive I know out there that can be used in a laptop without serious issues; granted it'll throttle itself into oblivion most of the time but it is at least smart enough to do that rather than blowing itself up.




You've probably got enough case ventilation to keep it cool enough to prevent throttling. Tosh boards have the strongest history of overheating problems which is why they're dirt cheap on ebay. Most were pulled from returned/RMA'ed laptops, nothing wrong with the drive just the design plus the restricted airflow that doomed them. I'm working on putting together a VM/Compute/Mining box and that's what I'm going to use as it's primary drive (a 256GB XG3 from ebay).

Figthing? Sharing my experience with it.. quite simple.

Maybe dont stuff the damn things under a gpu and it wouldnt happen as much.

Half those links are in laptops.... come on.....

Lol I literally said laptops! In your case it's fine but it is something that folks should pay attention to. There are lurkers out there who read stuff like this and think they're OK as a general use device, NO! No they're not! In a previous thread I bought a silicon image NVME drive because people said "its the coolest running drive it worked on my laptop", bull****! Both of them went back because they kept overheating to the point of S.M.A.R.T errors on my laptop on a cooling pad even with the panel off with direct airflow! They need to be watched carefully and looked at on a case by case basis. These drives need active cooling otherwise you're going to have issues.