Heatsinks/Pads/Strips for NVME drives?

I've never thought about it - mine sticks out of the board and is directly in the fans airflow path so I suspect it wouldn't be needed.

I wouldn't bother though. If it got that hot then I'd worry about other components too.

:)
 
My ADATA nvme drive came with a logo'd pad. At first I thought it was just a sticker like you sometimes get with hardware but then I noticed it had notches cut into it. Does it actually serve a purpose other than aesthetic? It's quite thick, like those magnetic stickers.
 
I use copper foam heatsinks on mine. Available from the German sounding electronics giant. Iirc I've got 3 20x20's on each. Nice little mod most commonly used with high end laptops to help cooling.

Not sure how much difference they make tbh but better than nowt. If case flow is positive pressure then they should be getting some cooling regardless.
 
If your motherboard has a M.2/Nvme port under a heatsink then use that. Otherwise it will be fine. The newer Nvme drives seem fine unless they are ran in RAID(And even then unless your I/o is going insane it wont be an issue). The older drives like SM951/961 used to be pretty bad for throttling performance when they were put under a reasonable load. Never had an issue with 970 Evo/Pro in the open.
 
Can anyone confirm, in my laptop my M2 SSD has this strip on it, it was a bit like chewing gum, should I keep this on my NVMe drive? The NVMe controller can get up to 90 degrees I see maybe hotter.
 
It's worth noting there is some discussion about heatsinks having a negative effect on M2 SSDs see here:

https://youtu.be/KzSIfxHppPY

willhub said:
Can anyone confirm, in my laptop my M2 SSD has this strip on it, it was a bit like chewing gum, should I keep this on my NVMe drive? The NVMe controller can get up to 90 degrees I see maybe hotter.
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The strip or sticker is likely a factory heat spreading device, probably best to leave it on.
 
Under normal circumstances they shouldn't need extra cooling. And as alluded to above, sticking pads and heatsinks on them may actually serve to insulate them and make them hotter.

Check Samsungs data sheets for the drive but if I recall correctly the safe operating temperature is up to 90c.

If it's running at 90c you've got other thermal issues you need to adress, it's more likely being indirectly warmed up by the CPU or gpu.
 
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Nvme drives benefit from lower temps on the controller and higher temps on the nand.

For this reason samsung has previously employed a heat spreader which takes heat from the controller and distributes it across the entire surface helping to keep the memory warm.

If you can place a thermal pad / heatsink on the controller and not on the nand then that would be ideal. If not and temps are getting out of hand then leaving a thermal solution on the entire m.2 drive is fine.

If temps are low (including the controller) then it is best to avoid using a heatsink to allow the flash memory to stay at optimal temps to ensure longer life.

If the controller overheats (and it will before nand does) then the drive will throttle and perform worse.

Of course if the heatsink and pad are just trapping heat rather than dissipating it and you have issues with the temp on the controller then it makes sense to remove the heatsink.
 
A heatsink does make a big difference to the idle and max running temps. Personally I think they are well worth it considering how little they cost. I prefer the Gelid Solutions SubZero M.2 They are cheap and easy to fit. Just take care with the thermal pad becuase they are very delicate. Lifting the M.2 away from the motherboard on to a PCIe riser card also sometimes makes a big difference ~ depending on the location of the slot and how well ventillated it is.
 
Under the M2 drive you can see this chewing gum like stuff, is that actually to help cooling?

0ufNZq7.jpg
 
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