The ssd disk a data is warming up. Do I need to cool my M.2 SSD? Solutions collect form web for “Will SSD keep my laptop from overheating?”

Solid-state drives have become extremely popular over the past few years, in some cases completely replacing hard drives, which could not but entail a mountain of myths about them. So let's figure out what you can and cannot do with SSDs, and how different systems work with them.

Myth one: old systems do not know how to work with SSDs and thus kill them.

The reason for the myth is clear: the TRIM command "out of the box" is supported only by relatively modern versions of systems: in the case of Windows, it is 7 and higher. What is this command and why is it needed? The problem is that when you delete a file in the same Explorer, it is not physically deleted from the drive, the latter does not even know about it: your file system simply marks the necessary cells on it as "unused". In the case of hard disks, there are no problems: for them there is no difference in the speed of writing and rewriting a cell, but SSDs rewrite data much slower than write. For this, the TRIM command was introduced: it clears the "unused" cells before new information is written to them, that is, the drive speed will always be high.

From this we can draw a simple conclusion: old systems do not kill SSDs, simply due to the lack of TRIM support, such drives may work slower in them. But, again, this is "slow" many times faster than the best hard drives, and taking into account the general undemandingness of a ten-year-old OS on solid-state drives, they will simply fly.

Myth two: SSDs are much less reliable than hard drives.

It depends on what is considered reliable: dropping a SATA SSD from a height of a couple of tens of centimeters on the table, you most likely will not harm it in any way. But a hard drive can easily send such a fall to a computer paradise. But if we talk about the lifetime of these types of drives, then everything is not so obvious.

Tests carried out by 3Dnews show that even cheap SSDs can store 500-700 TB of information on them. Is it a lot or a little? Even if you actively install games on the solid-state drive and store 4K video on it, you will hardly write more than 15-20 TB on it in a year. In other words, you will exhaust the resource of rewriting cells in 20 or even 30 years (and for top SSDs in general in a century) - obviously, you will stop using this drive much earlier and for other reasons.

On the other hand, on various computer flea markets it is easy to find HDDs with volumes of 20-40 GB, which are two decades old and have good SMART indicators - they are sold only because smartphones in the modern world have much more memory. So, in general, for most modern drives, be it SSD or hard drives, one thing can be said: with a high degree of probability they will outlive your device, or even more than one, and are more likely to become obsolete than break down.

Myth three: there is no point in installing an SSD in weak computers

There are two questions here - which PC is considered weak, and for what purposes do you use it. From my own experience, I can say that even with the Pentium 4, which is 15 years old, Windows 7 runs and boots on an SSD much faster than on a hard drive. But on the Internet, for example, there is no difference - everything quickly runs into 100% CPU load and runs slowly on both drives.

In general, one thing can be said here: if the processor does not work at maximum in your daily tasks, then installing an SSD will speed them up, no matter how old your CPU is. In practice, even in the case of the Core 2 Duo, which is only a couple of years younger than the P4, Windows 10 on the solid-state drive "rustles" much faster, and this is clearly visible even when surfing the Internet.

Myth four: you need to install NVMe SSD in top gaming computers, period

I am amused by the fact that fast NVMe SSDs are massively installed in expensive assemblies or laptops. In short, this is a new protocol developed specifically for SSDs and allows you to connect the latter through as many as 4 PCIe lanes, which gives mind-blowing sequential read and write speeds in excess of 2-3 GB / s.

But in practice, if we compare the download speed of games from such monsters and unpretentious budget SATA SSDs, the difference turns out to be ... one or two seconds, and the gap from the HDD is often 2-3 times. Why is this happening?

Firstly, sequential reading or writing is a spherical horse in a vacuum: in just a couple of tens of seconds the fast SLC cache ends and the speed drops to several hundred megabytes per second, that is, quite to the level of a typical SATA 3. Second, games (and programs in general) are not a couple of files weighing several gigabytes, these are thousands and tens of thousands of small files of a kilobyte weight, and SSDs do not work with them very quickly, often the speeds are only tens of megabytes per second - this is again available for regular SATA SSDs, and at the same time an order of magnitude faster than the best HDDs. And thirdly, the download speed of games depends not only on the SSD: the processor, video card, and RAM play a role here.

As a result, we get that a cool NVMe SSD and a simple SATA when loading games perform almost the same, so there is absolutely no point in overpaying for the first one - you will hardly feel the difference between 24 and 25 seconds, but other components can be improved with the money saved.

Myth five: you can completely delete data from an SSD only by full formatting.

How does full formatting work? It is very simple - it is banal to write zeros to all cells of the drive. It is almost impossible to recover data after this (due to the magnetic nature of the HDD, it is still possible, but it requires very expensive equipment and the chance of complete recovery of deleted information is zero), so it is actively used to clear the drive of data for, for example, sale.

But after all, to delete information from the SSD, the TRIM command is used, which completely overwrites the cells, which makes it impossible to recover data. And it is called just during fast formatting, so full formatting in the case of a solid-state drive is not corny, moreover, even harmful: you essentially increase the amount of information recorded on it by its volume, thereby reducing its resource.

Myth six: SSDs do not increase FPS in games

It would seem, what is the myth? After all, the data from the drive is first loaded into RAM, and then the processor and video card work with them. That is, the number of frames per second in games depends only on three of them, the drive is not important here.

However, this is not entirely true: modern games are very heavy, and the speed of the hard disk may not be enough to load the necessary data into RAM. As a result, this will cause either non-loaded textures, which is unpleasant in itself, or, even worse, the so-called "friezes": in other words, the picture will freeze. This will not affect the average FPS in any way - but the so-called 1% low or 0.1% low can drop to 5-10 FPS: this will mean that a freeze occurs in the game every few seconds, and it is, of course, very unpleasant to play like that.

Transferring the game to an SSD will help get rid of this problem, and in this case, 1% low and 0.1% low will seriously rise and there will be no freezes, so a solid-state drive can really increase the number of frames in games.

Myth seven: you can't just take and transfer a system from HDD to SSD

For some reason, some people think that modern systems are installed differently on these two types of drives, so if you installed an SSD in your computer, the system will have to be reinstalled. This is fundamentally wrong: even if you installed Windows 10 on the HDD, drivers for working with SSD will still be stored in the system folder, so when you transfer the system to such a drive, it will work on it without any problems after some self-configuration.

Of course, there are exceptions: for example, the release Windows 7 does not know how to work with NVMe SSD, so before transferring it to such a drive, you will have to integrate a driver with its support into it. Also, system activation may well fly off, but, in general, in the vast majority of cases there will be no problems.

Myth eighth: in order for an SSD to live for a long time, you need to transfer the swap file from it, disable indexing, check for viruses, and so on.

Perhaps, there is nothing surprising here: indeed, if we turn off all system operations that overwrite anything on the SSD, it will of course live longer. Only here there is one subtle point: even without such tweaks, your solid-state drive can work for more than a dozen years, but without a swap file (or with it, but on the HDD), you will quickly learn all the pain from a lack of RAM and you will be "happy" search for files on a disk with disabled indexing. So the principle is simple: don't touch anything and enjoy fast work.

Myth # 9: SSD requires defragmentation

I think many of those who installed the system on the HDD still remember that after six months or a year defragmenting the drive often allowed it to return to its former nimbleness without reinstalling. The reason for this is simple: it is easier for the HDD head to read data from the disk when they are located sequentially. Any transfer of it to another place is a delay of tens of milliseconds, which easily translates into extra tens of seconds of loading the system or programs. Therefore, defragmentation - that is, the process of combining "pieces" of programs from different areas of the disk into one - really accelerated the work.


However, in the case of an SSD, this is not the case: if you do not go into details, then the access time to any cell on it is the same. Therefore, it makes no difference whether the program is written in one whole piece or is divided into many small ones - it will open equally quickly. So the defragmentation process for a solid-state drive is corny and even harmful, since it will again reduce its resource.

Myth ten: SSDs do not require further configuration after installing the system.

Not certainly in that way. Indeed, most users simply put the required OS on solid-state drives and work quietly without any problems, but in reality SSDs are quite complex devices, and some manufacturers (for example, Samsung) write separate drivers for them and release utilities to update their firmware. So, of course, you don't need to touch anything, and everything will work well on modern systems, but it is often possible to further improve the performance of an SSD by updating drivers or firmware.

Myth eleven: SSDs, like RAM, don't get too hot, so they don't need heatsinks

Even how they get warm. Of course, if you take cheap SATA drives with simple controllers, then you won't have any problems with them. But top-end NVMe SSDs from Samsung or Intel often have powerful dual-core controllers, and it can be difficult for them without cooling: temperatures quickly jump to 70-75 degrees and throttling begins, leading to a decrease in read and write speeds. So if in the case of RAM, radiators are actually self-indulgence, then for fast solid-state drives they are, as they say, a must-have.

Myth twelve: you need to constantly monitor SSDs.

Not necessary. Of course, you need to keep track of everything: a computer is a rather complicated thing, so it is still advisable to check the temperatures or the state of the drives once in a while. But there is absolutely no need to do this on an ongoing basis, moreover, to keep monitoring programs in memory is absolutely unnecessary: ​​the SSD controller itself is excellent at distributing information to cells, and modern operating systems are excellent at working with solid-state drives and sending them the right commands at the right time.

As a result, as you can see, there are enough myths about SSDs. Do you know any more? Write about it in the comments.

For the greater convenience of site visitors, we have combined all the important aspects into one single material, in which you can find answers to most of the questions related to SSD.

F.A.Q. is in a constant and dynamic growth mode. The number of questions and answers will expand with the addition of new materials! But if you are sure that there are certain questions, undeservedly left unanswered, then send your wishes to the email address. Whenever possible and based on the question of appropriateness, all important comments and questions will be added to the global F.A.Q.

Theory:

V: What is it in generalSSD?

O: An SSD is a solid state drive, that is, a storage device based on semiconductor elements. Read about the history, differences from HDD and advantages in the material "".

V: What areSSD?

V:I often see what is being discussed whereSSD, there are also abbreviationsSLC /MLC, what is it and is it important?

V: What is TRIM command and the like?

O: Due to the specifics of the device's operation, in order to maintain its speed characteristics, it is highly desirable that it has support for TRIM or similar technologies. You can find out what TRIM is.

V: All the time there was a hard drive and there were no problems, I don't know why I needSSD?

O: SSD outperforms the hard drive in many respects, however, there are situations when it is really not needed or not suitable for the user as a storage system, we recommend that you read the article "".

V:How do I know what I will get approximately if I change the hard drive toSSD, without the vague concept of "faster"?

O: Especially for you, the material "" has been written, which deals with very specific situations of using an SSD in home the system of the average user.

V: I have an old computer (or netbook), it works rather slowly, would it make sense to putSSD into it?

O: Yes, it will. Despite the fact that, of course, a semiconductor drive will not be able to fully "open up" while in the same simple netbook, it still significantly increases the speed of the device.

V: It is easy to recover information from a hard disk in a service if it breaks, but they say that this cannot be done on an SSD?

V:I do not need a largeSSD, but maybe even a small one will not be enough, does the volume of the device affect something important?

O: Yes, it does. Small-volume SSDs are the weakest in the lineup and are significantly cut in terms of write speed, which can "harm" the adequate operation of the OS, especially since SSDs cannot be crammed to capacity, nothing good will come of it. The work of cleaning algorithms and the durability of the device will become more complicated.

V:Why someSSDs are available in 40GB, 60GB, 90GB, 120GB and so on, and some are 32GB, 64GB, 128GB ...

O: This may depend on the number of memory chips installed. For example, a 40GB SSD is obtained because it uses 10 4GB chips, or 5 8GB chips. It also happens that the developer installs "spare microcircuits", or uses some of those already available as a reserve, which will be used, over time, to maintain the speed and reliability parameters of the drive. There are cases when a developer refuses to do this by releasing a firmware that opens all available memory to the user.

V:Which controller to choose SSD on?

Practice:

V: Which operating system is best to use to work withSSD?

O: It is best to use Windows 7 starting with SP 1 and later OS versions.

V: And I need to putWindowsXP! Can I install it onSSD?

O: It is possible, but there is a nuance (C). Windows XP was not designed to work with SSDs. It, for example, does not include the execution of the TRIM command, as well as disabling some options when working with a solid-state device, which can somewhat harm the drive.

V: MyIs the SSD very hot during operation, is this normal?

O: Solid-state drives are much more resistant to temperature than traditional hard drives, however, on some (mostly capacious and fast) models, serious heating has been noticed during operation, to the point that SSD is unpleasant to hold in your hands. The issue of the influence of temperature on new drives is not fully understood, so you should not risk it and it is better to place the SSD in a ventilated basket.

V: Computer withSSD suddenly began to issueBSOD and sometimes it does not find the drive at all during startup.

O: Try to follow the "5 steps" from the article "".

V: How to check the speed of workSSD?

O: Use free utilities, information about which can be found in the section "" ..

V:Which controller mode to choose IDE or AHCI and what is the difference between them?

V: How to flashSSD?

O: For different drives, different firmware methods are used. The most successful one would be to find instructions on the manufacturer's website. But we also have examples:

V: The question is, is it worth it to flash at all?SSD, everything seems to work fine anyway?

O: You need to change the firmware. New versions do not appear on their own, manufacturers do not just improve the device, making it faster, but more often than not fix it critical flaws that led to errors and sometimes loss of information.

V: I want to replace the hard drive in my laptop, but at the same time I want to transfer the OS to it so that nothing is reinstalled. How can I do that?

O: The easiest way is to purchase a device with a special cable and software to create a clone of the system image. Drives with this configuration cost on average 200-600 rubles more than their counterparts, but they come with guaranteed working and compatible software / equipment. Very often the programs there are sharpened to work with this operation, so you can do it simply and quickly, as in. Alternatively, you will have to look for similar SATA-USB adapters.

Serious overheating issue, although fairly new (<6 месяцев). Он по-прежнему постоянно перегревается до такой степени, что он отключается. Обычно это происходит во время игры, но иногда во время просмотра видео или с помощью видеозвонков Skype в течение длительного времени. Я уже держу его в воздухе на охлаждающем поддоне с 2 внешними кулерами, но это, похоже, не помогает.

The only thing I can think of is to install an SSD instead of the current hard drive. I read that they generate less heat than hard drives, but could this actually seriously affect the heat level of a laptop?

If there are any other suggestions, please do not hesitate to comment.

Toshiba Satellite L650D-11R laptop.

12 Solutions collect form web for “Will SSD keep my laptop from overheating?”

In general, no, because SSDs do not have significant advantages in terms of power consumption over conventional mechanical hard drives (see the bottom of this article for an example). especially if we compare this difference with the energy consumption of the whole system,

It really boils down to how much power each drive draws under load or idle. What do you care?

Well, both drives are like a closed system, and from the first law of thermodynamics, the heat we put into the system should be equal to the heat that comes out (since no work is actually being done other than moving the plates, and even then the motion of the disc plates, in ultimately through microscopic and macroscopic processes dissipates into heat, as well as the second law of thermodynamics). In short, if the SSD is using more power, it will dissipate more heat.

Unless you find a solid state drive that uses less power, then your current hard drive (or any drive for that matter), keep what you have;)

For example, for some applications, like the OCZ Agility 3 SSD uses 1.5W idle and 2.7W under load, while the 1TB WD Scorpio Blue HDD uses only 1.4W under load and only 0.6W. idling!

Most likely not. Most of the heat is likely generated by the CPU and discrete GPU (ATI HD 5650). This is common on laptops because the fans and vents are relatively easy to clog with dust and dirt. It could also be caused by poorly applied thermal grease, or the heatsink may have failed.

I would check the vents for obvious blockages. Open the case and clean it if you can. If that doesn't help, or if you'd rather not open a case, contact your retailer or manufacturer and report the problem - it should still be guaranteed anyway.

But still feel free to upgrade to an SSD because the performance improvement will be amazing ...

Usually while playing a game, but sometimes while watching a video or making Skype video calls for a long time.

All activities that are video streaming or CPU / GPU intensive. Check for very poor airflow, dust and lint trapped in radiators or obstructing airflow past your GPU, CPU, and memory cards.

Gluing an SSD drive into this unit will likely be like installing a chrome radiator cap on a connected radiator. Purti with bragging rights, but the heat dissipation still stinks.

Well, since you asked about other suggestions. (Presumably apart from changing hdd to ssd) and I can include pictures of other suggestions in it.

You can get things like this. Coolers for the laptop. Cooling pads for laptops.

I have a couple of laptops and this is a problem on my pc laptop. (My Mac laptop has a metal case, the fan rarely ever goes above a very low speed)

This is an old post, but I would like to point out an obvious solution that no one else has suggested:

Have you tried cleaning the CPU heatsink and fan? For these things it is very common to drown the dust, and sometimes the kitty.

On some laptops, you can blow compressed air into the exhaust or fan.

If you can see the processor fan, you want to GET CARE to turn off the laptop, then (with the power off) use a handle or paper clip to secure the fan while blowing in the compressed air. The reason for this is compressed air. Can rotate the fan at a speed higher than it was designed and wear or fail the fan bearings.

If there are many gaps that will not come out, you may need to partially detach the laptop.

Please read the manual for this laptop before doing anything. There should be instructions on how to clean the radiator, or at least enough information about opening it to be sure (if you've done it before or feel good).

You don't talk about it. Do you have enough bar to handle games and videos properly? Also, many new laptops are booted with bloatware (software that can run inefficiently in the background), which can overload your processor.

CNET's website has free utilities that will check your CPU usage when you are not playing games or watching videos. This will give you an idea of ​​what software on your laptop might be using your processor and possibly causing your system to overheat, slow down, and possibly crash.

I got a copy of HWMonitor's CPUID and found it was my CPU overheating. I adjusted the power settings -> CPU power management -> Max power consumption to 80% and my fan became quiet again. Obviously, if I do something that requires 100% CPU usage, I will need to adjust it, but for daily use I cannot tell the difference.

Absolutely not. The hard drive / SSD does not generate enough heat * to cause the system to stop even in the most adverse conditions.

The point is that you have a cooling problem in the CPU and GPU subsystem. Here are some potential reasons:

• Incorrectly installed heat sink (s), either incorrectly connected, or the thermal interface connection was incorrectly applied (if at all).
• Blocked fans / airflow. Clean the dust, clean the ribs, etc.
• Broken fans - either not working or not working well.
• There are too many processes running in the background. If you are using an intensive application, find ways to disable or close applications running in the background to reduce CPU usage.
• Poor overall design. My opinion is that this is a real problem for you. Unfortunately, most laptops have thermal designs that are so poor that they overheated when they got a decent CPU / GPU load for a long time ... practically out of the box. The number of laptops on the market with poor thermal designs is simply tragic and the sad reality is people who don't know in advance.

(*) - However, going from MHD to SSD will actually affect your thermal processors. My own experience is that moving from MHD to SSD actually increases CPU usage because the CPU no longer has to wait on the HDD to find data. In theory, your processor will be able to do more in less time, but in practice you will be doing more - which will run the CPU even more.

After swapping my regular HD to an SSD, my HP HD16t went down 10 degrees.

This was supposed to be a comment, but could not be posted due to the length ...

One thing to note: my laptop fan often came with hot air pushed out to the sides. What for? It was not a processor - I am using Core Temp, so I could see in my tray that the CPU was mostly idle (i7) .. but seeing it every day I had a good idea of ​​the cpu tempos. Then I decided to move my cached IDE files to a ramdisk for performance ... and yes, it made the IDE faster. But .. an interesting side advantage, the rates were around a 10-15C cooler for the CPU. And I almost never hear a fan or feel hot air. The constant access of the SSD seems to be heating up the insides of the laptop case. I have a Samsung EVO 850, I'm not sure if this is the same for all SSDs .. but this is an interesting article. Powerful SSDs: Hotter than Drives | ZDNet. However, I am not sure exactly how this applies to regular SSDs.

I know he's an old post, but I wanted to call back. I had overheating issues with a Dell xps 15 L501X. What I had to fix was that I took off my entire computer, removed the heatsink from the cpu, and cleaned up a really bad factory installed thermal paste job. I then applied high performance thermal grease to reinstall the heatsink. And since then I have never had another overheating problem. I would advise you to do this and also clean your entire computer often as they can easily get clogged with dust. I also installed an SSD to this day, I am writing this post three years later and am playing very high graphics games on my PC and there was NEVER ANOTHER QUESTION. good luck

The problem with an SSD is that it will give the computer a false reading of its temperature. And if the computer detects an overheated hard disk drive (SSD), then it will run the fan at maximum RPM, but the fan will not turn on because the rpm value is not recognized. I suggest getting a cooling pad and running speed. Use a cooling pad when watching a movie or playing games. But disable the hard disk temperature sensor because it will give a false read from the CPU.

It's no secret that high-speed NVMe models of the Samsung 960 Evo (Pro), Plextor M8SeGN and others like them are subject to overheating. Moreover, some of the models are produced with a pre-installed radiator, while others - without. And this may cause concern, given the high read-write speeds specified in the specification. Large numbers, unfortunately, not only warm the soul and indulge self-esteem, but also warm the device itself. So I came across material on the uk.hardware.info resource, where SSD cooling is considered, heatsinks are being tested for, with the results of which I suggest you familiarize yourself.

The essence of the problem

The issue of heating and, accordingly, cooling did not arise when it came to drives on the SATA bus. In them, with a temperature regime of operation, everything is fine in any conditions, even in the absence of airflow. Heating began to manifest itself when switching to a much faster PCIe bus, when the read or write speed exceeded the 1 GB / s mark.

Update. 24.10.2018. By the way, this is not entirely true. Nevertheless, even some drives on the SATA bus, however, in the 2.5-inch form factor, have a tendency to noticeable heating, as shown by the test results, for example, or. Thermal padding on the controller and / or memory chips or blowing is still desirable in some cases.

And the higher the speed, the hotter the drive became. This forced the release of models with a heat-dissipating radiator already installed. At the same time, the same drive model could have a modification without such thermal protection.

Motherboard manufacturers themselves are trying to deal with possible overheating of SSDs, which supply their models (mainly of the middle and higher price range) with included heatsinks. Unfortunately, not all motherboards have this option.

The problem is aggravated by the fact that on the surface of the M.2 motherboard, the connectors are not located in the most optimal places from the point of view of cooling. For example, a drive installed between two PCI-Express slots, in which there is one or even two powerful video cards, is sandwiched between these two "stoves", which do not at all improve the working conditions.

Hence the conclusion that the storage devices must be cooled, especially since the temperatures can be very serious. For example, the 512 GB Samsung 960 Pro used as a test subject in the Atto Disk Benchmark had a controller that heats up to 111 ° C, and memory chips - up to 71 ° C. Needless to say, this is a bit too much.

Naturally, throttling appeared, and read speeds dropped from more than 3 GB / s to 2.4 GB / s, while writing dropped from 2 GB / s to less than 1.7 GB / s. It can be assumed that the drop is not that big, but, first of all, why then buy a drive that cannot be used at full capacity. And secondly, it's just dangerous. After all, if something happens, not only the piece of iron will go to another world, but also the data stored on it.

In fairness, it must be said that the airflow bears fruit. Installing a 92mm fan at a distance corresponding to the front of the middle case reduces the temperature of the controller to an acceptable 79 ° C. The problem is that this is in ideal conditions. Can you provide the drive with a constant flow of air, which is not obstructed by any other elements, wires, etc. specifically in your computer? Whatever one may say, additional cooling is highly desirable.

Test participants

The subject has already been mentioned, this is the Samsung 960 Pro. But as heatsinks were 8 models, most of which are standard heat dissipating covers from motherboards, but there was also one more participant. We are talking about a heatsink for M.2 SSD recently released by EK.

This manufacturer is well known for its cooling systems, primarily liquid. This radiator is a fairly tall design with deep fins, which gives hope for efficient cooling.

Other heatsinks included with motherboards:

• Small heatsink from ASUS ROG Strix Z370-I Gaming.
• Radiator from ASUS ROG Maximus X Hero.
• Radiator from ASUS TUF X299 MARK 1.
• The largest variant, from ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming, is a cooler for both storage and chipset.
• Modest in size, a thin piece of hardware from Gigabyte, on which there are several small ribs.
• An even more modest variant of MSI's M.2 Shield.
• And a more solid version of the same manufacturer, called "M.2 Shield Frozr".

Radiators EK

Let me make a small digression to get acquainted with the recently appeared heatsinks for NVMe drives from the Slovenian company EKWB. The structure consists of two aluminum plates. The back is a simple aluminum rectangle. The front part, which is in contact with the chips on the drives, has a base 0.5 mm thick, on which there are ribs 3 mm high and with a 2 mm pitch.

These two plates are interconnected with steel latches. The heatsink contacts the elements on the M.2 SSD through thermal spacers, and they are installed on both surfaces of the drive.

The heatsink is compatible with M.2 SSD size 2280. Heatsinks are currently available in several colors: black, gray, red, blue, green and purple. The cost is about 10 euros.

Test results

For testing, we used Atto Disk Benchmark, which recorded 32 GB of data with a queue of 8 in order to achieve maximum load. The temperatures of the controller and NAND chips were measured. All tests were carried out both without blowing and using a simulated case fan with a diameter of 92 mm.

In the case without forced airflow, the MSI M.2 Shield radiator showed the weakest result, which, however, is not surprising given the size of this piece of hardware. One should not expect serious opportunities from her, and yet she also cannot be called useless. More than 20 "dropped" degrees is useful in any case.

The best result, as expected, was shown by the most massive radiator from the ASUS ROG Strix X299-XE Gaming motherboard. Still, size matters, whatever one may say. True, not everything is so simple here, but more on that later. The EK product shows average results.

When the fan is connected, the temperature drops noticeably. At the same time, there are no significant changes in the distribution of seats. The M.2 Shield has the weakest cooling, but the hefty heatsink from the Strix X299-XE is again the best. The EK radiator remains in the middle, but the loss to the leader is significantly reduced. Apparently large edges work well for blowing.

The measured read / write speed during testing showed a significant decrease with increasing temperature when using an SSD without a heatsink. With the installed cooling systems, the results are very close and, apparently, the difference is caused not by the cooling efficiency, but by the spread of values ​​during testing.

From this we can conclude that even the most "frail" heatsink allows you to use the drive at full capacity. The temperature, of course, will be higher than in the case of more efficient solutions, but, as they say, in this case, this does not affect the speed if it does not come to throttling.

Conclusion. Testing cooling heatsinks for SSD - you need to cool

When asked whether it is necessary to cool high-performance NVMe M.2 SSDs, we can confidently answer in the affirmative. Even the simplest radiator can significantly reduce the temperature, keeping it within acceptable limits. Naturally, different models of these coolers have different efficiency.

At the same time, the difference between them is only in the actual values ​​of heating the elements on the drive. The operating speed is the same for all tested models. Naturally, if the location of the drive on the motherboard is not very good in terms of cooling, and even with the "heating" of a powerful video card (or two) located in the immediate vicinity, then it makes sense to use a more efficient radiator.

The only thing that should be said about the not entirely fair results of the largest heatsink of the Strix X299-XE Gaming motherboard. On the one hand, the dimensions differ significantly from the competitors, on the other hand, in the test it was used only with a drive, although in ordinary life it also cools the chipset, that is, the real temperature of the drive is likely to be higher. Yet this does not contradict the conclusions in any way.

Owners of motherboards on which such heatsinks are already installed initially, it makes no sense to change them to something else, as well as refuse to use them. For those who do not provide any cooling, or if the board is of an old model, it is still advisable to purchase a heatsink for the SSD.

Of course, this is true only if there are two factors. First, you have a truly top-end, high-performance drive. And secondly, you use it to its fullest.