News CPU Tower-Style Cooler Reduces M.2 SSD Temps By Over 50 Percent

[Admin]

M.2 SSD heatsinks continue to evolve, and it looks like this one has become something uncannily like a desktop CPU cooler. However, the M.2 Three is much smaller, lighter, and cheaper than most CPU coolers.

CPU Tower-Style Cooler Reduces M.2 SSD Temps By Over 50 Percent : Read more

 

[dwd999]

IDK I would want to hear some comments from the motherboard manufacturers indicating that the m.2 mounting could handle such weight and stress. And while I might use one in the passive mode on a motherboard mounted in a horizontal case I don't think I'd risk it in a vertically mounted motherboard in a tower case.

 

[leoneo.x64]

D'uh! It's like saying running your PC on the north pole can result in much lower operating temps. Ofcourse it WILL! That's not how you solve the problem though...lol!

Most M.2 slots are between PCIe slots and anything that exceeds the SSD length and breadth is a step in the wrong direction.

and let's not forget WHERE this fan will dump the heat: directly on GPU or RAM (based on which M.2 slot you use.

Personally I think fully metal based, active / hybrid motherboard armour should become the norm. No one will object if the armour is even 2 times thicker.

 

[-Fran-]

Let's just ignore the fact a GPU will get in the way of such cooling 90% of the time, unless you don't want a discrete GPU at all...

I guess there's a non-zero chance someone will find a use for this non-ironically? Maybe?

Regards.

 

[hotaru251]

would want to hear some comments from the motherboard manufacturers indicating that the m.2 mounting could handle such weight and stress.

should be fine.

m.2 are generally pretty secure similar to gpu's.

its got little room to move (due to the m.2 locking mechanism/screw) so stress shouldnt be damaging at all.

also m.2 dont need cooled just the controller itself does (wish they'd have a cooler for that andn ot rest of the m.2)

 

[pixelpusher220]

should be fine.

m.2 are generally pretty secure similar to gpu's.

its got little room to move (due to the m.2 locking mechanism/screw) so stress shouldnt be damaging at all.

also m.2 dont need cooled just the controller itself does (wish they'd have a cooler for that andn ot rest of the m.2)

newb question - is this only for high i/o intensive loads or does even normal disk usage require it? or will with faster speeds?

 

[Math Geek]

pcie 5 drives use a lot more power than 4.0 versions. this have made it necessary for some kind of active cooling as they run very warm and even hot at normal loads.

i don't see this working at all since as others noted, it is either sitting right on the back of the gpu which blocks air getting to the fan or it will sit right in front of the gpu dumping it's hot air straight into the gpu.

many m.2 slots end up underneath the triple+ slot gpu's and this heatsink would not even be mountable. they are thinking about the problem for sure but this needs a different approach ...

 

[hotaru251]

newb question - is this only for high i/o intensive loads or does even normal disk usage require it? or will with faster speeds?

depends. many MB come with covers that act as heatsinks for at least 1 of the slots.

4.0 would liekly only be intensive loads 5.0 might be different (again no real data for general use/testing yet) but also (afaik) not backwards compatible with current mb as they are fatter than modern ones.

pcie 5 drives use a lot more power than 4.0 versions. this have made it necessary for some kind of active cooling as they run very warm and even hot at normal loads.

i could see m.2 getting small downdraft fans over a flat heatsink similar to how vrm got cooled by stock intel coolers. rather than towers.

or MB will have to relocate where m.2 end up (seen some with em near ram slot iirc)

 

[thestryker]

We absolutely need motherboard makers to move them away from the CPU/GPU because the amount of heat being dumped into the hottest part of a PC is just getting worse. I'd be thrilled if they'd just start putting U.2 ports on every motherboard so I don't need to put the SSD on the board period.

 

[Math Geek]

i could see maybe the m.2 slot turning sideways like a ram slot. don't really need 4 ram slots anyway and it would leave space for the drive that way away from the gpu/cpu area.

just a random thought anyway

 

[ezst036]

Why not just water-cool the M.2 SSD at that point? Adding one more device into the system with two extra tubes is surely a simple task.

 

[Math Geek]

might be headed that way. with 300w+ cpu's, 600w+ gpu's water cooling is pretty much going to be mandatory anyway. why not include the m.2 slot....

 

[TerryLaze]

I guess there's a non-zero chance someone will find a use for this non-ironically? Maybe?

I'm pretty sure these where designed for huge servers and drive racks.
If a user has a heat sink on the m.2 and any kind of air flow in the case it would be enough.
Plenty of videos on the youtubes that show as much.

We absolutely need motherboard makers to move them away from the CPU/GPU because the amount of heat being dumped into the hottest part of a PC is just getting worse. I'd be thrilled if they'd just start putting U.2 ports on every motherboard so I don't need to put the SSD on the board period.

But you need them as close to the cpu and ram as possible for data integrity, the longer the traces the higher the risk of things going wrong.

 

[kerberos_20]

pcie 5 drives use a lot more power than 4.0 versions. this have made it necessary for some kind of active cooling as they run very warm and even hot at normal loads.

i don't see this working at all since as others noted, it is either sitting right on the back of the gpu which blocks air getting to the fan or it will sit right in front of the gpu dumping it's hot air straight into the gpu.

many m.2 slots end up underneath the triple+ slot gpu's and this heatsink would not even be mountable. they are thinking about the problem for sure but this needs a different approach ...

slapping m2 on adapter and using gpu style blower cooler for example

 

[watzupken]

The result should not come as a surprise at all. Comparing a low profile SSD cooler vs a tall tower type cooler, it is obvious that the tower cooler with active cooling will do a lot better. And these NVME SSDs will require bigger and active cooling solution over time, just for the "benefit" of higher transfer rate, that don't matter to 95% of retail users.

 

[passivecool]

will our heatpipes soon need heatpipes? I think the engineers are on something that makes them see fractals.

 

[-Fran-]

I'm pretty sure these where designed for huge servers and drive racks.
If a user has a heat sink on the m.2 and any kind of air flow in the case it would be enough.
Plenty of videos on the youtubes that show as much.

I can't say I've seen how the latest NAS'es and other server racks organize their NVMe/SAS drives, but I'm sure this is not it for cooling. Most server use pasive heatsinks and then force high pressure air through them (hence the loud noise). Some are moving to liquid, but same-ish idea.

So, in short, I'm not sure you're quite correct there. This smells like a consumer product and not a server part. Happy to be wrong though.

Regards.

 

[edzieba]

Yet more cosmetic metal attached to an m.2 for go good reason.
All benchmarking thus far has shown that you need to be shoving tens to hundreds of gigabytes of data around in one go (i.e. SSD-to-SSD transfers, SSD-to-HDD or NAS are so slow the controller won't break a sweat) before any m.2 controller is going to start thermal throttling. And you need to avoid cooling the NAND packages themselves, or they won't be able to bring themselves up to operating temperature and will instead continually waste power (and erase cycles, because that's typically the heat source used for warming rather than adding dedicate resistor elements) chasing a setpoint temperature they will never reach as all that heating power is farted out the heatsink instead.

 

[TerryLaze]

Most server use pasive heatsinks and then force high pressure air through them (hence the loud noise). Some are moving to liquid, but same-ish idea.

Hence why the fan is optional? Also sure this is just a guess, it could absolutely be a gimmick to sell to gamers.

 

[cfbcfb]

Welp, the sabrent heat sink I bought for my gen 4 drive that has heat pipes and weighs enough to dent something if thrown USED TO BE the cool thing I totally didn't really need.

And now this. Hang on while I get my tape measure out...

 

[-Fran-]

Hence why the fan is optional? Also sure this is just a guess, it could absolutely be a gimmick to sell to gamers.

Hence why my original comment: I'm betting this is mostly a gimmick and not really something practical for consumers, like at all xD

If you end up having to remove the "tower" and fan, then* what's the point? XD

Regards.

 

[Colif]

We need different motherboard designs if NVMe drives are going to get active cooling.
I recall some boards did vertical nvme slots. that would help cool cards a little.
water cooled nvme slots, here we come.
pcie 5 cards might be a little warm, my pcie3 nvme hits 55c, how hot can they go? wonders what operating temp will be.

 

[InvalidError]

pcie 5 drives use a lot more power than 4.0 versions. this have made it necessary for some kind of active cooling as they run very warm and even hot at normal loads.

The first generation of almost any new interface requires more power than the 2nd and 3rd generation iterations while they refine the details based on field results. There used to be a huge fuss about PCIe 4.0 burning more power than 3.0 when it first came out and it has become a non-issue since. Skip the first two generations of 5.0 hardware and you most likely won't need to think about it anymore.

BTW, due to trace length restrictions before needing retimers, the 5.0x4 NVMe is above the GPU slot on most motherboards.

 

[TerryLaze]

If you end up having to remove the "tower" and fan, then* what's the point? XD

Regards.

The tower stays, the fan on the tower is optional.

 

[escksu]

It won't work on most boards. The Nvme slot is usually between slot1 and slot 2 on the mainboard. Since slot-1 is mostly occupied by a graphics card, it is not possible to have a cooler of that size.