SSD high temperatures

Whenarewethere · Guru

SSD high temperatures

Cupie · Guru

My SSD is installed inside my Laptop so cooling it as described is impractical.

In any case my usage is so limited that I doubt if overheating is an issue.

Most of my data is stored in the now external HDD that was replaced by the onboard SSD. The HDD is only plugged in when I want to access that data.

Also I just use a Bluetooth connected el cheepo HP mouse & keyboard.

dorian · Guru

https://assets.coolermaster.com/products/masterair-ma620p-tuf/img/section2.png

https://images.hothardware.com/contentimages/newsitem/57085/content/small_ElecGear_SSD_Heatsink.jpg

https://www.custompc.com/wp-content/sites/custompc/2023/04/Jiushark-M2-four-SSD-cooler-03.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61NDGg1KfVL.jpg

https://graphicscardhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/m.2-ssd-heatsink.jpg

Whenarewethere · Guru

I put the heat pipe coolers on all my CPUs years ago. They work really well. Just getting a bit overkill for the SSD, certainly with 120mm fans.

This one I repurposed for a Peltier fridge experiment.

Even the aluminium dice (in photo a start of thread) with holes in it & another one on top of the SSD worked well.

StormCamper · Member

Well it comes down to what SSD you are using, as a general rule during use the storage itself doesn't mind temps up to <70C, it's the controller that is the problem.

Writing will always generate alot more heat than reading, and the heat can become a threat with silent data corruption as this helps electrons leak out of the transistors. Also continued exposure to high temps can lead to data corruption as it can degrade the cells. Which is a problem as nowadays we typically deal in many terabytres, so SSD's are great for temporary storage, while HDDs are more safer for backups.

To make matters worse the tech has gotten much more dubious, thats how ssds are now so affordable, for example QLC tech is dirt cheap with sata ssds but very dubious for holding any important data for long periods, add in much higher data densities means its easier for data corruption due to the smaller size of the transistors. Going from SLC to MLC to TLC to QLC means electrons can more easily leak out. M.2 sdds use TLC and are already a bit dodgy here.

You haven't seen heat until you see Gen 5 nvme drives....These things are ridiculous and require big heatsinks like a cpu cooler, the controllers heat up in an instant and the transfer of heat from those chips to the heatsink is rather poor, its due to the lousy surface area, poor conductivity between the surfaces, heat conducted from the mobo and parts, and the fact that there are no additional fans for them. For constant heavy loads gen 5 is a waste vs gen 4 as they are only fit for a low duty cycle work loads. Even when loading up say 20GB they get very hot.

Good old mechanical HDDs are just such a simple tried a true tech, my 10TB WD pro drives can run at 180-200MB/s all day 24/7. No ridiculous massive coolers and fans, aswell no threat of mentioned data corruption.

Corndoggy · Senior Member

Can I cool my flux capacitor this way?