Slight issue with SSD

RamboFB

RamboFB

RamboFB

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Hello having a slight issue with installing an SSD into the required slot. The drive sits too high to engage the securing notch. I can see the issue, drive itself comes with a heatsink which adds a little height to the bottom. In the slot also there is a thermal pad thats adds a millimetre in height. Even with using a bit of force it will not drop down enough. I am thinking about just removing the soft thermal pad from the slot which I am certain will allow the drive to fit?

If that's not a good option.

  • Return the drive to over clockers and get one without a heatsink (very non-preferred).
  • Or I could remove the heatsink from the drive looks fairly easy to do with the right screw driver and keep the thermal pad as is and use the heatsink that came with the motherboard.

A little advice greatly welcomed here.

My exact hard drive:

www.overclockers.co.uk

Crucial T700 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen5 M.2 Solid State Drive with Heatsink (CT2000T700SSD5)

Order Crucial T700 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen5 M.2 Solid State Drive with Heatsink (CT2000T700SSD5) now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

Also here is a video with my exact same board and drive (although its the non-heatsink version), most relevant info at 31mins

 
Tetras said:
Some manuals tell you do that with a double sided drive, or rather, don't install it. I can't find any mention of it in ASRock's manual.
Click to expand...
Agreed only to remove the stickers which have done, probably not an ideal drive for the this build.
 
I cant find anything on the crucial website regarding taking the heatsink off to make it like the non-heatsink version of the drive. I would have been happy doing that.
 
RamboFB said:
I cant find anything on the crucial website regarding taking the heatsink off to make it like the non-heatsink version of the drive. I would have been happy doing that.
Click to expand...
If a drive is fitted with a heatsink from the factory, I would not remove it. PCI-E 5.0 drives get hot too, so they do need them.
 
Tetras said:
If a drive is fitted with a heatsink from the factory, I would not remove it. PCI-E 5.0 drives get hot too, so they do need them.
Click to expand...
Sorry what I meant was remove the heatsink from the drive and use the motherboards heatsink instead. My thinking was it would end up like this:

www.overclockers.co.uk

Crucial T700 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen5 M.2 Solid State Drive (CT2000T700SSD3)

Order Crucial T700 2TB NVMe PCIe Gen5 M.2 Solid State Drive (CT2000T700SSD3) now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

As previously suggested it would be best to keep everything to manufactures specs to avoid any chance of voiding warranties so I will be looking for a replacement, most likely the one above.
 
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I have never seen a motherboard have a thermal pad there before. As the others have said, return the drive and buy one without a heatsink. That beast of a heatsink that comes with the motherboard will most likely cool better anyway as it's so much bigger.

I would also say don't bother with a over priced Gen 5 drive either. They run much hotter and you are not going to notice any performance difference outside of benchmarks. I have a Gen 3 drive and Gen 4 drive and I can't tell any difference between them unless I bench them. Just buy a good Gen 4 drive and enjoy the £70+ you have saved.

Both of these are good, fast drives with decent TBW:-

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £243.94 (includes delivery: £3.99)​
 
pastymuncher said:
I have never seen a motherboard have a thermal pad there before. As the others have said, return the drive and buy one without a heatsink. That beast of a heatsink that comes with the motherboard will most likely cool better anyway as it's so much bigger.

I would also say don't bother with a over priced Gen 5 drive either. They run much hotter and you are not going to notice any performance difference outside of benchmarks. I have a Gen 3 drive and Gen 4 drive and I can't tell any difference between them unless I bench them. Just buy a good Gen 4 drive and enjoy the £70+ you have saved.

Both of these are good, fast drives with decent TBW:-

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £243.94 (includes delivery: £3.99)​
Click to expand...
Its unfortunate, I am certain taking off the motherboard pad and using the drive heatsink will be fine (Crucial recommend this). Slight throttling providing all things being equal.


Taking the heatsink off the drive looks annoying but possible providing you only intend to use the motherboard heatsink forever, which will probably keep the drive from throttling with my board.

Some nice data here purely from a knowledge point of view:


All things said and done I might just keep the drive and plug into the M2.2 gen 4 slot (still direct to the socket).

Any temp issues will be eradicated I am sure, I can install the drive as is, no removing anything and I like the look of the heatsink with the drive.

Also gives me a bit of future proofing if I ever need a Gen 5 drive.

Couple of assumptions:
  • The drive will be close to the performance of the 2 mentioned drives above with the Gen 4 slot being the speed limit?
  • If this drive was my OS I could move it to the Gen 5 slot without any issue?

I got this drive for a good price from Overclockers £167.99 so taking away the recorded delivery fee (£6??) probably only saving £35 give or take depending on which 4 gen drive I buy.

I will sleep on it or if anyone advises my 2 assumptions are wrong then might just keep it.
 
RamboFB said:
I will sleep on it or if anyone advises my 2 assumptions are wrong then might just keep it.
Click to expand...
They're not wrong. I'd definitely take the pad off rather than the heatsink, it is just that most motherboards with these pads seem to ask you to install it with a single sided drive, rather than the pad comes pre-installed and it needs removing. That makes me more reluctant to mess with it.
 
Tetras said:
They're not wrong. I'd definitely take the pad off rather than the heatsink, it is just that most motherboards with these pads seem to ask you to install it with a single sided drive, rather than the pad comes pre-installed and it needs removing. That makes me more reluctant to mess with it.
Click to expand...
The m2.2( gen 4, direct to socket slot for the motherboard) has no thermal pad installed or heat sink. The hard drive will install comfortably no issues.

What confuses me is the M2.2 has no heatsink or thermal pad but the M2.3 and M2.4 slots include a motherboard heatsink and thermal pads?

M2_1 is gen 5 to socket heatsink/thermal pad
M2_2 is gen 4 to socket no heatsink/thermal pad
M2_3 is gen 4 to chipset heatsink/thermal pad
M2_4 is gen 4 to chipset heatsink/thermal pad

I can only assume going to chipset takes longer therefore more draw= equals more heat? I am certainly no expert or being as thick as a whale omelette!







-
 
RamboFB said:
I can only assume going to chipset takes longer therefore more draw= equals more heat? I am certainly no expert or being as thick as a whale omelette!
Click to expand...
There shouldn't be a difference in how hot the drive gets in that sense.

M.2_2 is under the GPU, isn't it? It makes it more awkward to use a bulky motherboard heatsink there and due to the heat dumping from the graphics card, it is often a less optimal slot anyway.

I guess maybe they expect you to use a larger drive there for storage, which would not want a pad if it was double sided.
 
pastymuncher said:
I have never seen a motherboard have a thermal pad there before. As the others have said, return the drive and buy one without a heatsink. That beast of a heatsink that comes with the motherboard will most likely cool better anyway as it's so much bigger.

I would also say don't bother with a over priced Gen 5 drive either. They run much hotter and you are not going to notice any performance difference outside of benchmarks. I have a Gen 3 drive and Gen 4 drive and I can't tell any difference between them unless I bench them. Just buy a good Gen 4 drive and enjoy the £70+ you have saved.

Both of these are good, fast drives with decent TBW:-

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £243.94 (includes delivery: £3.99)​
Click to expand...

This.

There are some use cases for super fast NvME's, but they're very niche and rarely anything a consumer would require.

It's money being spent for the sake of it 99% of the time, I know it's cool to have but it's really not necessary. Also, there's a reason that the T700 has that huge heatsink on it, if running at full pelt I'm not entirely confident a standard motherboard heatsink/cover would provide ample cooling.

Those drives are for benchmarks or non-consumer/general use more often than not, there's a reason mid range + motherboards for non HEDT setups sport basic heatsink/drive covers.

The T500 or above suggested drives would be ample and save you a good chunk, or alternatively you could buy a 4TB drive for the same money that's still extremely fast.
 
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Tetras said:
There shouldn't be a difference in how hot the drive gets in that sense.

M.2_2 is under the GPU, isn't it? It makes it more awkward to use a bulky motherboard heatsink there and due to the heat dumping from the graphics card, it is often a less optimal slot anyway.

I guess maybe they expect you to use a larger drive there for storage, which would not want a pad if it was double sided.
Click to expand...
Makes sense!!
 
Gray2233 said:
This.

There are some use cases for super fast NvME's, but they're very niche and rarely anything a consumer would require.

It's money being spent for the sake of it 99% of the time, I know it's cool to have but it's really not necessary. Also, there's a reason that the T700 has that huge heatsink on it, if running at full pelt I'm not entirely confident a standard motherboard heatsink/cover would provide ample cooling.

Those drives are for benchmarks or non-consumer/general use more often than not, there's a reason mid range + motherboards for non HEDT setups sport basic heatsink/drive covers.

The T500 or above suggested drives would be ample and save you a good chunk.
Click to expand...
Most gamers reject any Gen 5 drives. Certainly not worth the money. The reason a looked at Gen 5, simply the motherboard I wanted could do it, I got one at a good price comparatively and I do mostly music production stuff. I posted in an few forums regarding VSTI's. I didn't get great answers because I guess music production users aren't a fraction as passionate about hardware as gamers.

Using several digital instruments at once they can drag a hard drive speeds and RAM down really quickly due to their poor optimisation. Obviously I am talking about 20 plus virtual instruments going at the same time.
 
RamboFB said:
Most gamers reject any Gen 5 drives. Certainly not worth the money. The reason a looked at Gen 5, simply the motherboard I wanted could do it, I got one at a good price comparatively and I do mostly music production stuff. I posted in an few forums regarding VSTI's. I didn't get great answers because I guess music production users aren't a fraction as passionate about hardware as gamers.

Using several digital instruments at once they can drag a hard drive speeds and RAM down really quickly due to their poor optimisation. Obviously I am talking about 20 plus virtual instruments going at the same time.
Click to expand...

I actually looked into this a little while back and I do know of cases where people use super fast NvME's for your sort of workload, makes it easier than loading up on ridiculous amounts of RAM as you can swap files more efficiently with extremely fast storage and it can potentially be more cost effective. It was a bit of a nightmare finding details so I do feel your pain, there's definitely dedicated forums for it but the raw data on the subject is not easy to find, more so given how extreme DAW's can scale from bottom to top in terms of requirements. I honestly don't think people realise, I wouldn't be surprised if a high to top end DAW was at least on par if not higher stress on hardware than a pro CGI workstation.

I built one for a guy a good few years back that was very clued into what hardware he needed, so on my end it was simply finding him the best prices and doing the build. He went very heavy on the RAM for the intent of turning a chunk of it into a RAMDISK, it's a super confusing minefield of knowledge to me.

Personally? I'd go for a T500 as it's still plenty fast, test the waters and see if it does help with your use case, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing a faster drive later and relegating the one you buy to secondary storage.
 
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Gray2233 said:
I actually looked into this a little while back and I do know of cases where people use super fast NvME's for your sort of workload, makes it easier than loading up on ridiculous amounts of RAM as you can swap files more efficiently with extremely fast storage and it can potentially be more cost effective. It was a bit of a nightmare finding details so I do feel your pain, there's definitely dedicated forums for it but the raw data on the subject is not easy to find, more so given how extreme DAW's can scale from bottom to top in terms of requirements. I honestly don't think people realise, I wouldn't be surprised if a high to top end DAW was at least on par if not higher stress on hardware than a pro CGI workstation.
Click to expand...
Getting any kind of performance data for music production is really "you are on your own". That's why I lent towards the intel ultra core vs AMD, at least I could say they will bench better with like cinebench for per pound note spent. That's all I had though, gaming benches for AMD were so much better pretty much all the time except maybe the 13/14th optimised CPU's that nobody will touch with the issues reported.
 
Gray2233 said:
I actually looked into this a little while back and I do know of cases where people use super fast NvME's for your sort of workload, makes it easier than loading up on ridiculous amounts of RAM as you can swap files more efficiently with extremely fast storage and it can potentially be more cost effective. It was a bit of a nightmare finding details so I do feel your pain, there's definitely dedicated forums for it but the raw data on the subject is not easy to find, more so given how extreme DAW's can scale from bottom to top in terms of requirements. I honestly don't think people realise, I wouldn't be surprised if a high to top end DAW was at least on par if not higher stress on hardware than a pro CGI workstation.

I built one for a guy a good few years back that was very clued into what hardware he needed, so on my end it was simply finding him the best prices and doing the build. He went very heavy on the RAM for the intent of turning a chunk of it into a RAMDISK, it's a super confusing minefield of knowledge to me.

Personally? I'd go for a T500 as it's still plenty fast, test the waters and see if it does help with your use case, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing a faster drive later and relegating the one you buy to secondary storage.
Click to expand...
Superb advice!
 
RamboFB said:
Getting any kind of performance data for music production is really "you are on your own". That's why I lent towards the intel ultra core vs AMD, at least I could say they will bench better with like cinebench for per pound note spent. That's all I had though, gaming benches for AMD were so much better pretty much all the time except maybe the 13/14th optimised CPU's that nobody will touch with the issues reported.
Click to expand...

As mentioned above, get a good gen 4/5 drive with DRAM for around the £100-130 mark and see how you get on.

Prices are only going to lower for the super fast variants like the T700, and while I realise it is actually not that poorly priced I think large storage might be a bigger short-mid term issue and if it's not you might not need the faster drive anyway. I'd opt for a 4tb for a similar price, if you find that the speed benefits and feel more might moreso, grab something like the T700.

Edit: Hah, I tend to edit things (funky brain syndrome lets call it) but I'm glad you saw it. I did reiterate in this post but in my mind you can never go wrong with more storage, but you might with more speed.
 
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Gray2233 said:
As mentioned above, get a good gen 4/5 drive with DRAM for around the £100-130 mark and see how you get on.

Prices are only going to lower for the super fast variants like the T700, and while I realise it is actually not that poorly priced I think large storage might be a bigger short-mid term issue and if it's not you might not need the faster drive anyway. I'd opt for a 4tb for a similar price, if you find that the speed benefits and feel more might moreso, grab something like the T700.

Edit: Hah, I tend to edit things (funky brain syndrome lets call it) but I'm glad you saw it. I did reiterate in this post but in my mind you can never go wrong with more storage, but you might with more speed.
Click to expand...
It will all come out in the wash my grandmother would say!!
 
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