Over the past few years, the cost of 2,5-inch SSDs has dropped almost to the level of HDDs. Now SATA solutions are being replaced by NVMe drives operating over the PCI Express bus. Over the period of 2019-2020, we are also seeing a decrease in the cost of these devices, so at the moment they are slightly more expensive than their SATA counterparts.
Their main advantage is that such data storages are much more compact (as a rule, this is a 2280 size - 8 × 2,2 cm) and faster than traditional SATA SSDs. However, there is a nuance: with the expansion of bandwidth and the growth of data transfer speed, the heating of the component base of drives operating using the NVMe protocol also increases. In particular, the situation with strong heating and subsequent throttling is typical for devices of budget brands, which arouse more interest among users with their pricing policy. Along with this, a headache is added regarding the organization of proper cooling in the system unit: additional coolers and even special heatsinks are used to remove heat from M.2-drive chips.
In the comments, users repeatedly ask us about the temperature parameters of Kingston drives: do I need to install radiators on them or think over a different heat dissipation system? We decided to look into this issue: indeed, Kingston NVMe drives (for example, , , ) are offered without heatsinks included. Do they need an external heat sink? Are these drives optimized enough to not bother buying a heatsink? Let's figure it out.
In what cases do NVMe drives get very hot and what does it threaten?
Well…, as we noted above, the huge bandwidth often leads to strong heating of the controllers and memory chips of NVMe drives during a long and active load (for example, when performing write operations of a large data array). In addition, NVMe SSDs consume a fairly large amount of energy to operate, and the more power they require, the more heat. However, it should be understood that the aforementioned write operations require more power than read operations. Therefore, for example, when reading data from the files of an installed game, the drive heats up less than when writing a large amount of information to it.
Typically, thermal throttling starts between 80°C and 105°C, and this is most often achieved when files are written to NVMe memory for long periods of time. If you don't write for 30 minutes, you are unlikely to see any performance degradation even without using the heatsink.
But let's assume that the heating of the drive still strives to go beyond the norm. How can this threaten the user? Except perhaps a drop in the data transfer rate, because in the event of strong heating, the NVMe SSD activates the mode for skipping write queues to unload the controller. This reduces performance, but the SSD does not overheat. The same scheme works in processors when the CPU skips cycles due to excessive heating. But in the case of a processor, gaps will not be as noticeable to the user as with an SSD. Having heated up above the threshold provided by engineers, the drive will start to skip too many cycles and cause “freezes” in the operating system. But is it possible to create such “problems” for your device in everyday use cases?
How does the heat work in real use cases?
Let's say that we decide to write 100 or 200 GB of data to an NVMe drive. And took for this procedure , which has an average write speed of 2500 MB / s (according to our test measurements). In the case of files with a capacity of 200 GB, it will take an average of 81 seconds, and in the case of a hundred gigabytes, only 40 seconds. During this time, the drive will heat up within the allowable values (we'll talk about this a little later), and will not show critical temperatures and performance drops, not to mention the fact that you are unlikely to handle such voluminous data in everyday life.
Whatever one may say, but in the conditions of home use of NVMe solutions, read operations significantly prevail over data write operations. And, as we noted above, it is data recording that loads the memory chips and the controller the most. This explains the lack of severe cooling requirements. In addition, if we talk about Kingston KC2500, it should be recalled that this model provides for operation at maximum load without additional active or passive cooling. A sufficient condition for the absence of throttling is ventilation inside the case, which is repeatedly confirmed by our measurements and industry media tests.
What is the thermal tolerance for Kingston NVMe drives?
There are many studies and publications on the Internet that tell readers that the optimal heating temperature for NVMe solutions should not exceed 50 °C. They say that only in this case the drive will work out its due date. To dispel this myth, we went directly to Kingston engineers and found out this. The acceptable operating temperature range for the company's drives is 0 to 70°C.
“There is no golden figure at which NAND “dies” less, and sources that give the optimal heating temperature at 50 ° C should not be trusted,” experts say. “The main thing is to prevent prolonged overheating above 70 ° C. And even in this case, NVMe SSD can solve the problem of high heat by itself, by degrading performance by skipping cycles. (which we mentioned above).
In general, Kingston SSDs are very well-designed solutions that pass many tests for reliability in operation. In our measurements, they showed compliance with the declared temperature range, which allows their use without radiators. They can overheat only in very specific situations: for example, if you have illiterately arranged cooling in the system unit. But in this case, you do not need a radiator, but a thoughtful approach to removing hot air from the system unit as a whole.
Temperature parameters Kingston KS2500
With long-term sequential recording of information on an empty drive , installed in the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero motherboard, the heating of the device without a heatsink reaches 68-72 ° C (in idle mode - 47 ° C). Installing a heatsink, which comes with the motherboard, can significantly reduce the heating temperature to 53-55 °C. But keep in mind that in this test the drive was not very well located: in close proximity to the video card, so the heatsink came in handy.
Temperature parameters Kingston A2000
At the drive temperature indicators in idle mode are 35 °C (in a closed stand without a radiator, but with good ventilation from four coolers). Heating when testing benchmarks while simulating sequential read and write did not exceed 59 ° C. By the way, we tested it on the ASUS TUF B450-M Plus motherboard, which does not have a complete heatsink for cooling NVMe solutions at all. And even so, the drive did not experience any difficulties in operation and did not reach critical temperatures that could affect its performance degradation. As you can see, in this case, the use of a radiator is simply not necessary.
Temperature parameters Kingston KS2000
And another drive we tested is . At full load in a closed case and without a heat sink, the device heats up to 74 ° C (idle - 38 ° C). But unlike the test scenario of the A2000 model, the test assembly case for performance measurement was not equipped with an additional array of case coolers. In this case, it was a test station with a stock case fan, CPU cooler, and video card cooling system. And, of course, you need to take into account that benchmark testing implies a long-term impact on the drive, which does not really happen in everyday use cases.
If you still really want to: how to install a heatsink on an NVMe drive without violating the warranty?
We have already made sure that Kingston drives have enough natural ventilation inside the system unit for stable operation without overheating of components. However, there are users who use heatsinks as a modding solution, or simply want to get over it by lowering the heating temperature. And here they are faced with an interesting situation.
As you have noticed, Kingston drives (and other brands too) are equipped with an information sticker, which is located exactly on top of the memory chips. The question arises: how to install a heatsink thermal pad on such a design? Will the sticker impair heat dissipation?
On the Internet, you can find a lot of advice on how to tear off the sticker (in this case, you lose the warranty on the drive, and Kingston has it up to 5 years, by the way) and place a thermal interface instead. There are even tips on the topic "How to remove a sticker with a heat gun" if she does not want to come off the components of the drive in any way.
We immediately warn you: do not do this! Stickers on drives themselves act as thermal interfaces (and some even have a copper foil base), so you can safely install a thermal pad on top. In the case of the Kingston KS2500, we weren’t particularly smart and used a thermal pad from the bundled heatsink of the ASUS ROG Maximus XI Hero motherboard. The same can be done with a custom heatsink.
Do NVMe SSDs need heatsinks?
Do NVMe drives need heatsinks? In the case of Kingston drives, no! As our tests have shown, Kingston NVMe SSDs do not show critical temperatures in everyday use.
However, if you want to use the heatsink as an extra decoration for the system unit, you are free to use the included motherboard heatsinks or look for stylish third-party aftermarket options.
On the other hand, if it is known that inside your PC case the heating temperature of the components is always high (close to 70 ° C), then the radiator will play the role of not only decor. However, in this case, we recommend a comprehensive work on the case cooling system, and not relying on radiators alone.
For more information about Kingston Technology products, please visit company.
Source: habr.com