Question Can someone recommend the coldest NVMe model?

[Maxxify]

One brief question: does SSD capacity have an effect on temperatures? I want to know whether I should go for a 1 TB or a 2 TB model, depending on that.

You need a certain amount of capacity to hit interleaving steps. This means faster sustained speed, so it runs hotter. With more flash you're switching more dies so maximum power draw is also somewhat higher. Peak performance is at four dies per channel but going higher than this can also pull more power.

As I specified in my first post, I've tested a different model (Kingston A2000), which I borrowed from someone, to see if the drive is the culprit and whether lower temperatures were possible in that type of laptop - and Kingston A2000 stayed significantly cooler (40-45 in idle, 60-65 in intensive load).

The A2000 is four-channel so will run cooler than eight-channel. Also, the A2000 used CUA memory while the SN750 uses BiCS, and CUA is generally more efficient.

Yes, I need sustained write performance, but not very high. That is why I misinterpreted the information Sean has provided in his review: because SN750 2TB has an average write speed of 1400 MB/s after cache, I assumed, when Sean said that it thermally throttled after several hundred of GB written, that it happened at the average speed of 1400 MB/s - while I need sustained write performance only in the USB 3.0 range, of maximum 400-500 MB/s.

400-500 MB/s is easily achievable, and that's just 5Gbps for USB.

I agree, but mine stood at 60 and hit 80 even in lighter writing loads. Hence, why I became determined to replace it, since I've seen from the reviews that SN750 is one of the hottest SSDs even in ideal conditions.

Well, Sean's reviews indicated a maximum temp of 61 degrees for SN570 in a desktop and I've seen similar results in other reviewing tests from youtube. Does your own information contradicts this data?

The SN570 is DRAM-less, four-channel, and uses newer flash than the SN750. Half the channels means lower sustained performance, as well. It's going to run cooler than the SN750.

Also, checking the types of controller you mentioned above brought out Solidigm P41 plus. I've read Shane's review and it says that the 2 TB version "measured it at 34C when idle. After writing 500GB of data, the drive peaked in the mid-60Cs". A 400 MB/s sustained write performance, after filling out a 270 GB of cache, is good enough for me in this regard. Therefore, Shane says "we would absolutely recommend the P41 Plus for laptop use". Would you agree with that assessment?

The P41 Plus is basically a "new" 670p. It's DRAM-less unlike the 670p but the basic tech is quite similar. It'll be more efficient as it's using a newer controller and no DRAM. The downside is that it uses QLC. Also, these drives perform best at 25-75% drive utilization, where other QLC like P3/P3 Plus makes more sense for storage (at 4TB anyway). But the latter suffers terribly from sustained writes as that's usually the case with QLC.

If higher capacity drives pull more power and therefore get more hot, I am leaning between a 1 TB SN570 and a 2 TB Solidigm P41 Plus (because 1 TB Solidigm P41 Plus has only 250 MB/s speed after cache, which is a bit slow). If not, I could go for a 2 TB SN570 or Solidigm.

Which is why a four-channel drive is optimal since you reach peak performance with fewer dies and then flatline with only minor power increases. Simply having more flash isn't making things hotter (for one thing, you could have more packages which dissipates heat better) per se.

There is also Silicon Power XD80, but I've heard that Silicon Power downgraded some models later, so they won't perform as well as the initial reviews indicate, which makes me hesitate about them

Typical E12(S) drive. These all changed a ton over the years.

 

[GVM2014]

The SN570 is DRAM-less, four-channel, and uses newer flash than the SN750. Half the channels means lower sustained performance, as well. It's going to run cooler than the SN750.

The P41 Plus is basically a "new" 670p. It's DRAM-less unlike the 670p but the basic tech is quite similar. It'll be more efficient as it's using a newer controller and no DRAM. The downside is that it uses QLC. Also, these drives perform best at 25-75% drive utilization, where other QLC like P3/P3 Plus makes more sense for storage (at 4TB anyway). But the latter suffers terribly from sustained writes as that's usually the case with QLC.

Which is why a four-channel drive is optimal since you reach peak performance with fewer dies and then flatline with only minor power increases. Simply having more flash isn't making things hotter (for one thing, you could have more packages which dissipates heat better) per se.

Yes, P3 Plus has good temperatures, but its post-cache speed of just 100 MB/s is way too low for me.
I am more inclined between a 2 TB SN570 and a 2 TB Solidigm P41 Plus. P41 Plus is also a four-channel, from what I've seen. Do you have any opinion on them?

SN570 has higher sustained speed of 600 MB/s, but a very tiny cache (albeit SLC) of just 12-13 MB/s (1 TB version). Sean reports that "While power consumption under load may have increased, the SN570 remains cool and operation is throttle-free, even without active cooling. Even after transferring 700GB of data, the Blue SN570’s peak temperatures only reached 61 degrees Celsius." - which is pretty much in line with other reviews. But this is the 1 TB version, do you have any info on speeds and temps for the 2 TB version?

 

[Maxxify]

Yes, P3 Plus has good temperatures, but its post-cache speed of just 100 MB/s is way too low for me.
I am more inclined between a 2 TB SN570 and a 2 TB Solidigm P41 Plus. P41 Plus is also a four-channel, from what I've seen. Do you have any opinion on them?

I stated what I thought about the P41 Plus above. It's still QLC. Sustained write performance is relatively good for QLC due to the cache design of that drive, but QLC will have more latency than TLC.

SN570 has higher sustained speed of 600 MB/s, but a very tiny cache (albeit SLC) of just 12-13 MB/s (1 TB version). Sean reports that "While power consumption under load may have increased, the SN570 remains cool and operation is throttle-free, even without active cooling. Even after transferring 700GB of data, the Blue SN570’s peak temperatures only reached 61 degrees Celsius." - which is pretty much in line with other reviews.

It's a static SLC cache which is why it can manage such consistent performance outside the cache. You're not liable to see this design on current and future drives (Gen4+) as hybrid with a smallish dynamic portion offers the best of both worlds (which is the case somewhat for the P41 Plus). Static-only is much closer to enterprise designs (no cache) which is better for sustained workloads, but people are sold on peak SLC performance. Which, to be fair, is more relevant for bursty consumer usage.

But this is the 1 TB version, do you have any info on speeds and temps for the 2 TB version?

It looks like the SN570 largely uses 1Tb BiCS5 which pegs peak performance at 4x4 = 16 dies = 2TB. Same maximum power rating as it has at 1TB, though. I imagine draw is higher on average but it would be difficult to achieve that since it's bottlenecked by the Gen3 PHY and you won't be able to hit high enough IOPS to matter.

 

[thestryker]

I assumed that the coldest in a desktop environment is also to be the coldest in a laptop (albeit hotter in absolute terms - like if it is 35 degrees at idle in a laptop, then it could be like 45 degrees in a laptop).
Taking SN750 as a reference point, this was described in Sean's review as "warmer than average" in idle, which probably means at least 50 degrees. Since it stays at 60 in my laptop, this would mean I can expect max 10 degrees more from an SSD in ideal environment.
Is that kind of inference wrong?

Yes it is wrong, because the power consumption drives the figures as well as whether or not there is a heatsink on the drive etc. That means the temperature increase for something that uses less power could easily be lower and one which uses more higher.

Also, Sean's report that "After writing roughly 400GB of data to the SSD, write performance started to gracefully degrade after surpassing the thermal throttle point (83-84C according to the SSD’s S.M.A.R.T. data)" does not sound well, in light of the fact that there are models which did not throttle at all in tests.

This part of the testing is done with no airflow and the P31 doesn't have any sort of heatsink.

Besides, Sean points out that "After the workload filled the SLC cache at a rate of 3.2 GBps, post-cache write speeds degraded to 1.4 GBps for the remainder of the test." After the experience with SN750, I would stay away from SSDs with very high post-cache speeds.

According to the Tom's reviews the P31 uses significantly less power than the SN750 (also uses less than the A2000) so arbitrarily comparing based on write speed isn't particularly useful.

The real problem is definitely availability across varying parts of the world. It's very unfortunate as the P31 is basically unique in having low end power consumption with high end performance.

 

[GVM2014]

Yes it is wrong, because the power consumption drives the figures as well as whether or not there is a heatsink on the drive etc. That means the temperature increase for something that uses less power could easily be lower and one which uses more higher.

Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? Since SN750 is power hungry, this mean that a SSD who uses less power would not heat up with 10 degrees more than it would in a desktop, as SN750 does?
Anyway, it can't be helped. That laptop has a 1 TB native SSD and I need some additional storage space, whether it's one 1 TB more or 2 TB. While it may be true that "there is no simple way to tell what sort of temperatures you're going to see in a given device", trying to make an educated guess from as much information as possible is still better than going blind, no?

It's very unfortunate as the P31 is basically unique in having low end power consumption with high end performance.

True, but high-end performance (if by that you mean its 1.4 GB/s sustained speed) is not really meaningful too me. I got the SN750 not because I specifically wanted the fastest PCI 3.0 drive, but because I was a cheapskate (it had the biggest discount at the moment of the purchase).