Samsung 990 Pro SSD cooling tested: efficient, with low temps

[Admin]

We investigate cooling Samsung’s 990 Pro SSD to see how it differs from other SSDs in its cooling needs.

Samsung 990 Pro SSD cooling tested: efficient, with low temps : Read more

 

[Chadchan]

Just a quick note: The article makes it sound like the 990 Pro is a PCIe Gen 5 drive, when it's a Gen 4 drive. As far as I can tell it's just being tested in Gen 5 M.2 slots. Or maybe the author meant that they tested a 9100 Pro?

 

[Morgan xXx]

☝🏽 This. There is no PCIe 5.0 990 Pro. The 9100 is the PCIe 5.0 entry from Samsung.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Samsung says that their Gen 4 sticks have a temperature window between 0-70c or 32-158F. I have never seen my Gen 4's get above 43c. I think the Gen 5's will also be fine.

 

[islandwalker]

Apologies for the PCIe 5 confusion. That was my fault. I have minorly updated the article to clear that up.

 

[bit_user]

Just a quick note: The article makes it sound like the 990 Pro is a PCIe Gen 5 drive, when it's a Gen 4 drive.

It doesn't just sound that way, the subtitle reads:

Samsung’s PCIe 5.0 990 Pro SSD is efficient and easy to cool.

Tagging @islandwalker , because it sounds like you missed a spot!
; )

 

[bit_user]

Samsung says that their Gen 4 sticks have a temperature window between 0-70c or 32-158F. I have never seen my Gen 4's get above 43c. I think the Gen 5's will also be fine.

For passively-cooled drives, it has a lot to do with where the drive is situated, how much airflow it gets, and whether this is cool intake air or exhaust from the CPU or GPU cooler.

Also, if you want to see how hot they can get, you should watch the temperatures during a write-intensive stress test.

Finally, there's a decent amount of variation in power consumption, from one drive to the next. Some drives definitely hit thermal throttling, without good cooling.

 

[Makaveli]

☝🏽 This. There is no PCIe 5.0 990 Pro. The 9100 is the PCIe 5.0 entry from Samsung.

lol this I read the title and was like WTF that is suppose to say 9100

 

[SkyBill40]

Just a quick note: The article makes it sound like the 990 Pro is a PCIe Gen 5 drive, when it's a Gen 4 drive. As far as I can tell it's just being tested in Gen 5 M.2 slots. Or maybe the author meant that they tested a 9100 Pro?

If the pics are to be believed, it's pretty obvious it's a 990 and not a 9100.

 

[toaste]

You want to cool the controller to prevent throttling, but people should really read the literature on flash memory before cooling the NAND aggressively. Flash memory is actually quite happy around 40-60C. Cold temperatures require higher voltage to force electrons into the charge trap, increasing wear. Also the gap between voltage thresholds gets harder to discern at cold temps, and shifts across the temperature range.

You want a heatspreader for thermal mass and temperature stability, but I’d look for a smaller heatsink or disable the fan if the sustained load temp were below 30C.

Physics simulations show LOWER BER at 70C than at 25C or 40C https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8538043/

 

[bit_user]

people should really read the literature on flash memory before cooling the NAND aggressively. Flash memory is actually quite happy around 40-60C. Cold temperatures require higher voltage to force electrons into the charge trap, increasing wear. Also the gap between voltage thresholds gets harder to discern at cold temps, and shifts across the temperature range.

I've seen some data supporting the idea that, for best data retention, you want to write the NAND while it's warm (like above 60 C, I think) but store it at cooler temperatures. You answered why writing hot NAND is better, but lower storage temperatures should mean the charge leaks away more slowly.

You want a heatspreader for thermal mass and temperature stability, but I’d look for a smaller heatsink or disable the fan if the sustained load temp were below 30C.

Yeah, it'd be neat if SSDs had a little PWM fan header on them, so they could actively modulate how much cooling they get.

 

[Albert.Thomas]

Just a quick note: The article makes it sound like the 990 Pro is a PCIe Gen 5 drive, when it's a Gen 4 drive. As far as I can tell it's just being tested in Gen 5 M.2 slots. Or maybe the author meant that they tested a 9100 Pro?

Apologies if there was any miscommunication. The 990 Pro is indeed a Gen 4 drive!

 

[aberkae]

Bought the 2 Terabyte 990 pro when I just came out and paired it with a secondary drive; 2 Terabyte 970 evo plus (the old goat) . With my Steam library and some others allowing the use of secondary, tertiary drives etc it makes upgrading to a 4 terabyte or higher less desirable. The performance of both makes it less desirable to upgrade to PCIE 5.0 storage as well. I have dozens of modern day games installed and still have 50% storage left to go.
Some folks got lucky and bough the 990 pros 2 Terabytes for $100. I bought it for $280 on launch and am still very satisfied.

 

[Stomx]

I've seen some data supporting the idea that, for best data retention, you want to write the NAND while it's warm (like above 60 C, I think) but store it at cooler temperatures. You answered why writing hot NAND is better, but lower storage temperatures should mean the charge leaks away more slowly.

Exactly. The slightly better error rate with higher temperature is one thing but tremendous decrease of charge retention time is another. According to JEDEC specifications, a client class SSD must maintain its data integrity for a minimum of one year at 30°C, but this retention time drops to less than 21 days at 52°C (!!!)