do i need a heatsink for nvme drive?

[Snowarch]

I upgraded to a dueldrive setup. m.2 nvme with 120gb for a boot drive, and a 1tb sata drive for the game storage. i was wondering does the m.2 need a heatsink spasific to the drive? heard corsair force 500 drive runs hot. its my first time working with an m.2 drive, and i do not want to fry it. also the slots on my boards say m.2 ultra so i its likely compatable.

 

if it does need a heatsink, is the one that came covering a motherboard slot good enough or is it like a stock cpu cooler where alternative tends to be better?

[Electronics Wizardy]

 

Id get a 240gb or 500gb if you can for boot. Windows 10 + programs can start to get tight under 120gb, and its nice to have a few games on the ssd. Also bigger drives are faster.

[CopiWasTaken]

3 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

I upgraded to a dueldrive setup. m.2 nvme with 120gb for a boot drive, and a 1tb sata drive for the game storage. i was wondering does the m.2 need a heatsink spasific to the drive? heard corsair force 500 drive runs hot. its my first time working with an m.2 drive, and i do not want to fry it. also the slots on my boards say m.2 ultra so i its likely compatable.

 

if it does need a heatsink, is the one that came covering a motherboard slot good enough or is it like a stock cpu cooler where alternative tends to be better?

you dont really need one, and the stock one should be fine.

[Grabhanem]

1 minute ago, Snowarch said:

I upgraded to a dueldrive setup. m.2 nvme with 120gb for a boot drive, and a 1tb sata drive for the game storage. i was wondering does the m.2 need a heatsink spasific to the drive? heard corsair force 500 drive runs hot. its my first time working with an m.2 drive, and i do not want to fry it. also the slots on my boards say m.2 ultra so i its likely compatable.

 

if it does need a heatsink, is the one that came covering a motherboard slot good enough or is it like a stock cpu cooler where alternative tends to be better?

If it's not PCIe gen 4, it shouldn't need one. The label on the drive is designed as a heat spreader to move heat to the flash chips, which actually like to be a little warm. If you have a motherboard heatsink there's no reason not to use it-- most people recommend cutting the paper on the thermal pad so the pad only contacts the controller, not the flash.

[Snowarch]

@Electronics Wizardy i am using ubuntu only eats less than 30gb for the os. and seeing as the m.2 are faster than ssds unless i read wrong, figured it'd be a slight boost.

 

@Grabhanem okay ill try to use the heatsink, but controller and flash? i dont exactly understand.

[Fasauceome]

My Force MP500 runs quite well without the heat sink

[Snowarch]

i just hope i can partition it right. always let the pc partition it for me in the past. gave 977mb swap, and 3 ssd partitions when i had one drive. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

@Electronics Wizardy i am using ubuntu only eats less than 30gb for the os. and seeing as the m.2 are faster than ssds unless i read wrong, figured it'd be a slight boost.

 

@Grabhanem okay ill try to use the heatsink, but controller and flash? i dont exactly understand.

m.2 drives are ssds, just claraifaing.

 

Id still go bigger, the space is nice for things like programs and files and the price difference is small.

 

Id just use the headsink on your board.

 

5 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

i just hope i can partition it right. always let the pc partition it for me in the past. gave 977mb swap, and 3 ssd partitions when i had one drive. 

For partitions, why did you make 3 in the past? Other the boot and swap, I normally have one big onve, and make subvolumes if needed.

[Grabhanem]

10 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

 

@Grabhanem okay ill try to use the heatsink, but controller and flash? i dont exactly understand.

The different components on the drive-- the controller is generally closer to the connector, while the flash is at the opposite end, and maybe a RAM chip next to the controller:

If you don't want to bother with cutting the paper you can just stick the whole thing on, it really doesn't matter either way.

[Kisai]

27 minutes ago, Snowarch said:

I upgraded to a dueldrive setup. m.2 nvme with 120gb for a boot drive, and a 1tb sata drive for the game storage. i was wondering does the m.2 need a heatsink spasific to the drive? heard corsair force 500 drive runs hot. its my first time working with an m.2 drive, and i do not want to fry it. also the slots on my boards say m.2 ultra so i its likely compatable.

 

if it does need a heatsink, is the one that came covering a motherboard slot good enough or is it like a stock cpu cooler where alternative tends to be better?

You do not require a heatsink, but you will not have the maximum performance out of the SSD if you do not have a heatsink. SSD's aren't like CPU's. The heat degrades the performance of the controller chip.

 

You can usually find high performance SSD's with heatsinks already on them, or you can add one to any existing one, just use the same kind of Thermal pad's you would use for RAM chips. I don't recommend thermal paste as getting it off later might contaminate the PCB.

 

The problem is that the heatsinks for SSD's only have one screw to mount them with, so they have to resort to a back-plate style heatsink, which makes them larger than a typical laptop mount, which is what current NVMe mounts assume.

 

You can use something like this however, if you're space-restricted:

https://www.newegg.com/p/17Z-00A1-000J0?item=9SIA8W59A99193

These just side-clip to the SSD, so it's not perfect, but better than nothing.

 

On Dell Precision 5520/5530's there isn't even a heatsink, there is just a thermal pad applied to the SSD and the back of the laptop is the heatsink. Which is a bit silly IMO.

 

[Snowarch]

the picture is the heatsink that came with the board. and i am confused. don't you want a boot drive as small as possible? and the hold all else drive big? the ssd is 1tb and even now, the ssd isnt completely filled. thr system apps like steam, blender, and stuff like my home folder go on the ssd and boot drive just, boots fast.