M.2 SSD Heatsink needed?

Kyo · 3 Jul 2018 at 01:02

Hi

New to m.2 ssds so planning to go for my first sata one. Read you can get passive heat sinks to help cool. I know the pcie nvme runs hotter than sata types so may benefit more but is it really needed or recommended for the sata temps i am likely to get?

Thanks
Kyo

bremen1874 · 3 Jul 2018 at 01:11

If they can survive closed up in a laptop I'm sure they'll be fine in a PC.

See how hot it gets once you have it installed.

spoffle · 3 Jul 2018 at 01:42

Some throttle due to temps, and the heatsinks are pretty cheap, which meant it was a no-brainer for me.

Pocah · 3 Jul 2018 at 09:06

spoffle said:
Some throttle due to temps, and the heatsinks are pretty cheap, which meant it was a no-brainer for me.

This!

They do get a bit warm. Under normal circumstances they are fine but if you are a heavy user they get very hot they can slow down. M.2 Heat-sinks can be a bit tricky to fit, but one I am a fan of is the Gelid Solutions Subzero. Cheap, easy to fit, and works well, so why not??

Some motherboards position the M.2 socket badly ( under the graphics card for example ) and it may prove necessary to put the drive in a different location. Silverstone do a PCIe slot board that lifts the M.2 away from the motherboard allowing better cooling.

Erm, oh, wait, I just looked at your motherboard. As far as I am aware it will not support the drive as a boot drive. Surely that's bad, isn't it?

doyll · 3 Jul 2018 at 12:51

What bremen1874 said. The odds are you will have no overheating problems.

From what I've seen most users have no problems. The ones that do have GPU by them with no airflow over them, so even with heatsinks they will run hot until the is some airflow.

Glanza · 3 Jul 2018 at 13:03

Not required if you've got decent airflow, more for show imo.

LuckyBenski · 3 Jul 2018 at 13:10

I've had a SATA M2 drive throttle in open air before (as in, on a cable hanging off the desk fully exposed). I made and fitted heatsinks myself and it stays below 45 now, down from 70.

I'd say you'll want some heat dissipation even if it's just a metal plate, it'll be miles better than bare chips. If you're never transferring multiple GB of files you're at less risk.

Kyo · 5 Jul 2018 at 10:12

I have switched to m.2 ssd pcie nvme instead so having the extra cooling makes sense. thanks for the help guys.

angel102 · 5 Jul 2018 at 11:35

put an EK nickel heatsink on a WD Black 512gb NVMe and idle temps dropped by about 5 degrees, similar sort of drop when under load installing games, as others have said it is not really essential if you already have a decent airflow in your case, but for the sake of a few quid it certainly doesn't hurt, and looks good if it matches the rest of your system rather than a big sticker on the side of a pcb anyway.

eddiew · 7 Jul 2018 at 13:13

IMO it's all about where the m.2 slot is. I don't believe there are any drives that need a heatsink if they're not stuck in a hot part of the PC

Source: On my old board it was behind the GPU, where my 960 Pro would hit 68-69 degrees and throttle during gaming

With a different board with the m.2 slot above the GPU, it never gets over 50 even in this heatwave and as a result is actually as fast as it should be.