Is it ok if I use a heatsink on my nvme ssd

cns00 · 12 Feb 2023

My laptop is an Alienware 17 R5. Before I was using Samsung 970 EVO Plus nvme ssd. The idle temp was between 35°C and 45°C, the temp when i played games reached 54°C and the temp when I did something intensive like Macrium Reflect backup\restore reached 74°C. My nvme ssd spoilt so I need to buy a new one. I am thinking about getting Samsung 980 Pro nvme ssd.

Samsung 980 Pro nvme ssd is a very fast nvme ssd so its temp can become very high. I heard people complaining that the nvme ssd suddenly vanished and that's because the temp became too high so the nvme ssd switched off and that's why it vanished. These people have to use a thermal pad sticker and a heatsink on the nvme ssd in order to lower the temp. However, the Samsung 980 Pro nvme ssd is a PCI 4 nvme ssd and my nvme ssd slot is PCI 3 thus the Samsung 980 Pro nvme ssd won't run on full speed so the temp should be lower. However, I want to use a thermal pad sticker and a heatsink on the nvme ssd as a safety precaution. The nvme ssd is in an isolated compartment and there is a weak airflow on top of it. The heatsink for me should be a thin copper strip and copper is very good at getting rid of heat.

I am doing research because all this is new to me. I am getting conflicting replies. One person is telling me that I should use a thermal pad sticker and a heatsink to keep the temp of the nvme ssd low because it is getting weak airflow. Another person is telling me that using a heatsink is a bad idea because the heatsink will suck up all the heat and it won't get rid of it fast enough because of the weak airflow so the heatsink will always be full of heat and that will eventually affect performance. What the second person says kind of makes sense but I guess that's only true if I am always heavily using the nvme ssd so it always generates a lot of heat. I won't be doing that and I will just play games from the nvme ssd. Also I am using this coolpad and I am turning on the center ring so there is extra air going into the laptop through the mesh grill and that air is coming in near to the nvme ssd. That air will get sucked by the laptop fans but I doubt that the laptop fans will suck the air fast enough so there will be left over air and that left over air will provide extra airflow for the nvme ssd and I can get a coolpad with a bigger and more powerful center ring so there is more air if that will help. What do you think?

Another issue is what thermal pad sticker thickness I should use. There is 0.5mm, 1mm, 1.5mm and 2mm. Also I can use all of the sticker and I cover all the surface of the nvme ssd or I can cut the sticker into squares so only part of the nvme ssd surface is covered. The first person who told me to use a heatsink says it's a waste of time to cut the sticker into squares and I should use a thick sticker so the surface of the nvme ssd is properly covered and the sticker makes proper contact with the heatsink. Also that person said if I use a thin sticker then it won't make proper contact with the heatsink and there will be gaps. The second person who told me that using a heatsink is a bad idea told me that if I insist on using a heatsink then I should use a thin sticker and I think that because the heatsink not making proper contact with sticker means less heat goes into the heatsink. What do you think?

Hearsepilot · 12 Feb 2023

I put a heatsink on every nvme device. Use the whole heatsink pad, the spare area would itself act as a heatsink.

hdmi · 12 Feb 2023

I have the 2TB 980 Pro inside my laptop, the M.2 socket of which also is limited by PCIe 3.0, and have been using it like that for the past 14 months.

That isolated compartment in the Alienware 17 R5 is so totally cramped. The mesh grill in the bottom cover plate on this laptop is located too far away from this compartment. Worse, there is a plastic wall that separates this compartment (labelled SSD-2) from the smaller compartment labelled SSD-1) so it blocks airflow as can be seen very clearly in the video below. (Just navigate to 2:15 in the video.)

At best, the effect that the mesh grill has on the former compartment is like homeopathy, as the plastic wall reaches all the way to a minuscule notch near the actual M.2 socket. You want air to get sucked out of the compartnent via this notch, as the hottest part on the 980 Pro is the controller chip, which is going to be located right next to this notch. The sticker that's on the 980 Pro by factory default is not just a sticker. It is a true heatsink, but not too many people seem to be aware of this fact. There's a 0.5mm difference in height between the Elpis controller chip and the NAND chips on the 980 Pro, which is yet another thing that not too many people seem to be aware of. So if your plan is to use adhesive thermal pads and a thin copper heatsink with the 980 Pro, then you would need to cut one 0.5mm thick square pad to cover the Elpis, one 1mm thick rectangular pad across the NAND. Add to this the 1.5mm-2mm thickness of the copper heatsink, and you'll end up with almost no clearance between the bottom cover plate of the laptop and it. As a result, the airflow will probably get worse, and so will the SSD's temperature. The coolpad might still help to cool all the plastic enough to get away with it, though. But personally, I, wouldn't use a thin copper heatsink when there's next to no clearance for that. You can enable Power Saving Mode in Samsung Magician. You can also unhide the hidden advanced power setting for NVMe Maximum Operational Power Level Power Configuration in Windows power plans. From an elevated command prompt:
To unhide:
powercfg -attributes sub_disk 51dea550-bb38-4bc4-991b-eacf37be5ec8 -attrib_hide
To hide (default):
powercfg -attributes sub_disk 51dea550-bb38-4bc4-991b-eacf37be5ec8 +attrib_hide

cns00 · 12 Feb 2023

thank you for your detailed reply. so what do you advise me to do? use the nvme ssd without a heatsink in the beginning and see what temps i get?

please tell me what temps you are getting on the 980 pro when it's idle, when you play games and when you do something intensive?

User2468 · 12 Feb 2023

FYI: Update your Samsung 980 Pro SSD firmware right now | PCWorld

Cr00zng · 13 Feb 2023

cns00 said:

thank you for your detailed reply. so what do you advise me to do? use the nvme ssd without a heatsink in the beginning and see what temps i get?

please tell me what temps you are getting on the 980 pro when it's idle, when you play games and when you do something intensive?

Samsung M.2 NVMe drive already has a heatsink/heat spreader integrated into the label, quote:

...integrating a thin copper film and because copper is a great heat conductor it helps to shed heat faster than would be possible without the label

Source

As for adding a "thermal pad sticker and a heatsink on the nvme" drive, they are mostly for look. Doing so could even be detrimental since the NAND chips like to run warm AFAIK. The controller on the other hand may get hot, if it sees intense use, but average usage, including gaming, isn't going to overheat the controller.

My new MB came with heatsinks/thermalpads for the four M.2 ports. My system has two 980 Pros and tested them with and without the the heatsink/thermalpad. The temperatures were within +/- one degree Celsius:

Is it ok if I use a heatsink on my nvme ssd-980pros.jpg

My system in itself runs on the cool side, this is the CPU temperatures:

Is it ok if I use a heatsink on my nvme ssd-i5_12600k.jpg

The ambient temperature was around 20 - 21 degree Celsius in both cases.

In my view, you do not need heatsink/thermalpad, especially in the laptop where it is certainly harder to added than in mid-size tower.

Helmut · 13 Feb 2023

The Samsung label is a heat spreader of sorts. A heatsink is a chunky lump with fins, some SSDs come with such a heatsink but obviously this makes it significantly higher, no good for laptops.

A thermal pad may actually make the situation worse by restricting the airflow which is already poor due to the very restricted space around the SSD. Basically a 50:50 chance scenario.

"I am doing research because all this is new to me. I am getting conflicting replies. One person is telling me that I should use a thermal pad sticker and a heatsink to keep the temp of the nvme ssd low because it is getting weak airflow. Another person is telling me that using a heatsink is a bad idea because the heatsink will suck up all the heat and it won't get rid of it fast enough because of the weak airflow so the heatsink will always be full of heat and that will eventually affect performance. "

Some of this is commonsense, neither reply is practical as you have no room for a heatsink in Laptops. You may have room for a pad with heat spreader copper shim stuck to that but that would restrict airflow.

"so what do you advise me to do? "

Basically look for an SSD with lower power consumption, much easier said than done, due to a whole host of variables.
You are stuck with a Laptop designer/engineer not using any commonsense.

The Samsung 980 Pro NVMe M.2 Gen 4 is a performance drive thus using more power ? 6w to 9w. Overkill for a Gen 3 interface.

My new Laptop has a Gen 4 Micron SSD(in Gen 4 slot), specs says 7.5w max for Gen 4, and 5.5w for Gen 3. The laptops SSD heat spreaders are about twice the area of a 2280 M.2 SSD and thicker than the heat spreading label.

User2468 · 14 Feb 2023

Just use a water cooler.

LOL