m.2 questions... lots of questions.

[TimoneX]

Yep. The rig in my sig is an E-ATX(obviously) so I always get boxes compatible with that form factor...even though most of my stuff ends up being standard ATX. Just. Never. Know.

Hmmm...after a somewhat lengthy chat with generic tech support guy at MyDigitalSSD he assured me that the BPX-480 should be working in an x399 board....though as he called it an x299 at one point, I don't think he knows first hand one way or another. Real nice folks over there...so I'm going to ship it to them for replacement rather than refund. The only drive I'd definitely prefer is the 960 Pro 1TB and Samsung is too greedy for my liking. $.39/GB vs $.57 is quite the premium on the admittedly excellent 960 Pro. Plus, I like to support the smaller companies where possible.

Edit: Figures. Newegg just issued a $50 coupon code on the Plextor 1TB PeG nvme drive. ...so now it's $386 which is a bargain. Almost $200 less than the 1TB Sammy 960 Pro. Looks like I'll have two m.2 drives. lol

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820249087&ignorebbr=1

Screw it. It goes perfectly with the silver/black/red color scheme I've been "forced" into with the new rig anyway.

 

[Sentential]

Bring on the E-ATX, my 15 year old tower case has the extra row of stand-off holes for the extended.

I have a high speed 40mm fan around here somewhere. I personally think that m.2 drive will be ok the way it is, but the scientist in me wants to try all options to see what the data shows. I have a RAM cooler from G.Skill that has two fans in a little frame deal that sits over your RAM modules (it came in the package with RAM sticks). I put the RAM cooler up as close to the sink as possible and turned it on. I left the side cover off, so I no longer had the side fans blowing in, but the RAM cooler was blowing straight onto the m.2 sink and the front case fan was still running of course. I ran the benchmarks again and there was no change in temp. Still seeing a max temp of 64 C (brief time spend in the 60s).

I don't think active cooling is going to do anything for me. If I had crappy case ventilation, then yeah maybe.

I can’t find the whitepaper but the throttling goes in stages until it goes into lockdown at 70c* unfortunately in order to cool it more than you already are you’d have to go with a setup like this:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11606/ekwb-launches-aftermarket-ekm2-aluminum-heatsink-for-m2-ssds

Or a waterblock on a riser like this:

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/ca...with_heatsink_and_water_block_compatibility/1

Again I’m not advocating any particular solution but perhaps you might want to consider using a riser to keep it cool since you’re hitting the upper limit before it goes into limp mode.

 

[batboy]

Dang, we sure about that 70 C?

Here's an article comparing the 950 pro to the 960 pro. I believe it says the 950 starts to throttle at 70 c.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...s-950-Pro-Performance-Thermal-Throttling-868/

I found my high speed 40mm fun, it was mounted on more than one northbridge in the past. The fan is like double thick and is a Sunon KD1204PKB1 (my fan control unit showed it running at 7500 RPM). I just used two screws to hold it in place against the sink. I figure the fan was blowing air under the drive too. I was reading that the label used on the 960 Pro has copper in it and is a thermal pad that supposedly helps cool the drive up to 30% better than without it. Something to think about before pealing it off.

Ok, I ran Crystal again, everything the same as before, except I have a Sunon high speed 40mm fan on the m.2 heatsink. I was ready to bet it would not make more than 1 or 2 degrees difference. My max temp was 58 C this time. That's 6 degrees cooler. I would call that significant. I will try a normal speed 40mm fan next (one that don't make your ears bleed).

 

[Sentential]

Dang, we sure about that 70 C?

Here's an article comparing the 950 pro to the 960 pro. I believe it says the 950 starts to throttle at 70 c.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/a...s-950-Pro-Performance-Thermal-Throttling-868/

I found my high speed 40mm fun, it was mounted on more than one northbridge in the past. The fan is like double thick and is a Sunon KD1204PKB1 (my fan control unit showed it running at 7500 RPM). I just used two screws to hold it in place against the sink. I figure the fan was blowing air under the drive too. I was reading that the label used on the 960 Pro has copper in it and is a thermal pad that supposedly helps cool the drive up to 30% better than without it. Something to think about before pealing it off.

Ok, I ran Crystal again, everything the same as before, except I have a Sunon high speed 40mm fan on the m.2 heatsink. I was ready to bet it would not make more than 1 or 2 degrees difference. My max temp was 58 C this time. That's 6 degrees cooler. I would call that significant. I will try a normal speed 40mm fan next (one that don't make your ears bleed).

I'd try the riser with a larger heatsink, you may be right about 70C* the start of throttling I couldn't find what it's thresholds were; all I could find was that operating temps said 70C* max which is pretty typical of nvme drives.

Also YAY! back alive on the AW again thank GOD! Now using a pair of Intel PRO 5400S in RAID0, getting 906mb/836mb, not as good as you nvme folks but I don't have the advantage of space lol

Environment
AVERAGE POWER CONSUMPTION
(System Level)3)
Typ. 5.1 Watts (512 GB)
Typ. 5.3 Watts (1024 GB)
Typ. 5.8 Watts (2048 GB)
POWER CONSUMPTION (IDLE)3)
40mW
RELIABILITY (MTBF)
1.5 Million Hours Reliability (MTBF)
OPERATING TEMPERATURE
0°C to 70°C (Measured by SMART Temperature. Proper airflow recommended)
Shock
1500G, duration 0.5m sec, 3 axis

http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/ssd960.html

Technical Specs -> More Specs

 

[batboy]

After having such good success with using a high speed 40mm fan mounted onto the sink, I tried a tame, quiet. low-speed 40mm fan. I got a max temp of 63 C, almost back to where I was. I put the double thick Sunon back on, but turned it down to 4k RPM with my fan controller. I ran the benchmark and got a max of 62 C. Same fan, same everything, but with the fan running at 6k RPM = max temp of 60 C. Now we're talking. I can live with 6k RPM, but at full speed that fan has a high pitched screech. It's odd that it takes a lot of air moving to make it cooler. The heatsink maybe is working as good as possible? Maybe the extra cooling from the high speed fan is due to air being forced under the drive module? I don't know for sure, but I suspect so.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if mounting it vertically might increase the cooling options (as suggested by Sent). I'm also looking at PCI-e adapter cards. One looks interesting: "SSD to PCI-E 3.0 x4 Adapter Converter Card with Cooling Fan and Solid Aluminum Shield. Powerful cooling fan and solid aluminum shield, temperature can be decreased by 10-30 degree Celsius."

I have one more m.2 socket on the motherboard and then if I got one PCI-e adapter, I could use the lowly third PCI-e 8X slot that I'll never use otherwise anyway. This would open up lots of options, like RAID5 or whatever.

 

[Sentential]

After having such good success with using a high speed 40mm fan mounted onto the sink, I tried a tame, quiet. low-speed 40mm fan. I got a max temp of 63 C, almost back to where I was. I put the double thick Sunon back on, but turned it down to 4k RPM with my fan controller. I ran the benchmark and got a max of 62 C. Same fan, same everything, but with the fan running at 6k RPM = max temp of 60 C. Now we're talking. I can live with 6k RPM, but at full speed that fan has a high pitched screech. It's odd that it takes a lot of air moving to make it cooler. The heatsink maybe is working as good as possible? Maybe the extra cooling from the high speed fan is due to air being forced under the drive module? I don't know for sure, but I suspect so.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if mounting it vertically might increase the cooling options (as suggested by Sent). I'm also looking at PCI-e adapter cards. One looks interesting: "SSD to PCI-E 3.0 x4 Adapter Converter Card with Cooling Fan and Solid Aluminum Shield. Powerful cooling fan and solid aluminum shield, temperature can be decreased by 10-30 degree Celsius."

I have one more m.2 socket on the motherboard and then if I got one PCI-e adapter, I could use the lowly third PCI-e 8X slot that I'll never use otherwise anyway. This would open up lots of options, like RAID5 or whatever.

Not just that but on the PCI-E riser you could theoretically buy a CPU cooler drill through it and bolt it down. That might be the better way of doing it if the heatsink on the riser isn't good enough to run passive.

Like I warned ya before batboy these nvme drives are really REALLY hot!

 

[gsrcrxsi]

all this talk of using m.2 PCIe adapters...

at that point, why not just buy an AIC thats natively PCIe?

to me the advantage of m.2 is the small form factor and space/cabling cleanup.

 

[EarthDog]

And to others its about working on older systems or keeping these cooler in some way.

 

[Sentential]

all this talk of using m.2 PCIe adapters...

at that point, why not just buy an AIC thats natively PCIe?

to me the advantage of m.2 is the small form factor and space/cabling cleanup.

And there you have it, the real question of the day! I couldn't agree more! NVME is very cool tech and it will eventually rule the roost but right now it's a mixed bag to be polite

 

[TimoneX]

all this talk of using m.2 PCIe adapters...

at that point, why not just buy an AIC thats natively PCIe?

to me the advantage of m.2 is the small form factor and space/cabling cleanup.

Just depends on your priorities. I mean you can grab a bare m.2 drive and try it out and if it throttles with your work load then there's always the PCIe card option. The drive I just grabbed comes with a slick heatsink right on it and so should be fine as long as it sees a bit of airflow. Some of the motherboard manufacturers are even incorporating m.2 mounting points that raise the drive slightly above the board...just enough to allow for some measure of airflow on the backside of the drive. Like you said the m.2 slot solution looks a whole lot tidier and disrupts airflow throughout the case a whole lot less.

 

[Max0r]

You guys are talking about using heatsinks and special fans to achieve 60C, it makes me think something is fishy on my end. My 256 GB Evo, on CrystalDiskInfo maxed out at 53C after 2 straight minutes of sequential reads, which was the hottest test. Is this because it is only 256 GB, with higher capacity units heating up more? Or would you say I need to use a different method of reading the temps? I did recently put a 120x38mm high speed delta on top of my CPU heatsink, running at 7v, which is blowing straight down onto the motherboard. My unaltered, full stickered Evo is sitting right underneath the fan in direct path of the airflow, with probably half a centimeter of space underneath it. At idle it is supposedly running at 31C right now

 

[Max0r]

I noticed that too and they persist even when you turn off every spyware option M$ crammed into 10. There's a host file template floating around the interbubez for easy blocking of the addys used to phone home. The easiest way I've found to stop browsers from going nuts with incessant writes all over the system drive is to simply move their cache to a ram drive. It's all crap I don't want stored in a zero power state anyway, so it works out well.

So far with firefox I notice... wait for it... 0 bytes per second written at idle. My one reason for not going the RAM drive route just yet, is I like being able to automagically continue my last session if for some reason it was rudely interrupted. Though maybe the session data can be or is saved separately. Which browser are you currently using for RAM drive caching?

 

[Sentential]

You guys are talking about using heatsinks and special fans to achieve 60C, it makes me think something is fishy on my end. My 256 GB Evo, on CrystalDiskInfo maxed out at 53C after 2 straight minutes of sequential reads, which was the hottest test. Is this because it is only 256 GB, with higher capacity units heating up more? Or would you say I need to use a different method of reading the temps? I did recently put a 120x38mm high speed delta on top of my CPU heatsink, running at 7v, which is blowing straight down onto the motherboard. My unaltered, full stickered Evo is sitting right underneath the fan in direct path of the airflow, with probably half a centimeter of space underneath it. At idle it is supposedly running at 31C right now

That’s probably why just keep in mind the SMART temps listed is for the SSD package not the controller so there is a possibility yours is quite a bit hotter.

Batboy given he’s on water doesn’t have nearly the airflow you do

 

[TimoneX]

So far with firefox I notice... wait for it... 0 bytes per second written at idle. My one reason for not going the RAM drive route just yet, is I like being able to automagically continue my last session if for some reason it was rudely interrupted. Though maybe the session data can be or is saved separately. Which browser are you currently using for RAM drive caching?

Waterfox and MS Edge.

Throttling on m.2 drives generally occurs during sustained write operations if it's going to occur at all.

 

[batboy]

My case ventilation is not what I would call wimpy. I have 3 intake 120mm fans and 3 exhaust 120mm fans.

On my 960 Pro I have two temps I can read, one is in the middle of the module and the other is close to the controller. So yeah, the controller is most likely hotter than what we are seeing on the thermistor. Maybe it's not a bad idea to run the cheaper drives right now. They're slower and therefore don't heat up as much.

Hey, another question: I read an article (optimizing Windows 10) that said "Enable TRIM support for SSD." What is that? Should I do it? If so, how?

 

[Robert17]

WinTen will enable TRIM support automatically when an SSD is detected. You don't have to actively do anything.

 

[TimoneX]

Hey, another question: I read an article (optimizing Windows 10) that said "Enable TRIM support for SSD." What is that? Should I do it? If so, how?

To ensure Windoze is passing TRIM commands on to your SSD, simply open a command prompt window with admin privileges and type the following:

fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

A response of "0" indicates that TRIM is working properly.

 

[Max0r]

That’s probably why just keep in mind the SMART temps listed is for the SSD package not the controller so there is a possibility yours is quite a bit hotter.

I gotta place a sensor there don't I? I knew it was too good to be true...

 

[Sentential]

My case ventilation is not what I would call wimpy. I have 3 intake 120mm fans and 3 exhaust 120mm fans.

On my 960 Pro I have two temps I can read, one is in the middle of the module and the other is close to the controller. So yeah, the controller is most likely hotter than what we are seeing on the thermistor. Maybe it's not a bad idea to run the cheaper drives right now. They're slower and therefore don't heat up as much.

Hey, another question: I read an article (optimizing Windows 10) that said "Enable TRIM support for SSD." What is that? Should I do it? If so, how?

I would agree but he's saying he has a down forced Delta pushing air against his m2 slot beside the socket so for at least that area he probably does have better airflow to the PCB packaging, his controller is likely as hot or hotter than yours. TRIM is just a form of garbage collection to clear out the SLC cache on the drive and semi-defragment the array, it happens automagically without any user input including on RAID arrays now.

I gotta place a sensor there don't I? I knew it was too good to be true...

Yea probably a good idea to, if you run one of the HDD benchmarks it does them in sequence so if it is throttling you'll see the read/write numbers stay flat then drop down significantly towards the end. I think a good rule of thumb is to use active cooling on all NVME drives by default until their peak load power usage starts to dip under 1W (it's as high as 8W now)

 

[batboy]

Yep, those Delta fans move a lot of air. I still have a 3 blade high speed 120mm delta (same fan that once took a hunk out of my thumb).

I put a thermistor from my fan control unit under the m.2 drive. It reads about what the lower reading sensor on the drive does, so that didn't help me.