M.2 Fan?

[mynhierc]

I've heard of several people using a fan on their M.2 drives. Jerry from Barnaclues Nerdgasm has a heat sink on his from pudget systems with a fan pointed at it, Asus has a file to 3D print a fan holder, the video Linus just released shows the Dell XPS 27 with one.

 

My question is, should I get one for my M.2?

What kind of fan? 

How should it be mounted?

[roylapoutre]

I'd say the fan is quite overkill for an M.2 drive. I currently have a 512GB M.2 SSD in my rig, and I simply put 2 heatsinks I had left from my Raspberry Pi with a thermal pad to make direct contact with the chip. It already helped temps quite significantly (approximately -5°C). If your case has great airflow, a fan seems unnecessary imo.

[mynhierc]

5 minutes ago, roylapoutre said:

I'd say the fan is quite overkill for an M.2 drive. I currently have a 512GB M.2 SSD in my rig, and I simply put 2 heatsinks I had left from my Raspberry Pi with a thermal pad to make direct contact with the chip. It already helped temps quite significantly (approximately -5°C). If your case has great airflow, a fan seems unnecessary imo.

Can you link to the heatsinks you have? I've searched but I can't find anything I feel is correct. 

[paddy-stone]

I agree with above... if you have good/moderate airflow in your case, the heatsink will do very little if anything to help with temps... adn could even make it worse in some situations. I have pretty good airflow in mine and have never seen my m.2 drive go above approx 46c, and it is situated on the underside of the mobo too. I'd say, if you haven't built the system yet, and the m.2 would at least be accessible after build, then wait and see what temps you get before deciding.

[roylapoutre]

14 minutes ago, mynhierc said:

Can you link to the heatsinks you have? I've searched but I can't find anything I feel is correct. 

Tried both this : https://www.amazon.com/Mudder-Aluminum-Heatsink-Cooling-Raspberry/dp/B01LXWK626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489360625&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=heatsink&psc=1 

 

and this : https://www.amazon.com/Enokay-Cooling-Heatsink-Raspberry-Heatsinks/dp/B014KKY3KI/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1489360625&sr=8-13&keywords=heatsink

 

They perform about the same (even though I expected copper to be a bit more effective)

[mynhierc]

10 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I agree with above... if you have good/moderate airflow in your case, the heatsink will do very little if anything to help with temps... adn could even make it worse in some situations. I have pretty good airflow in mine and have never seen my m.2 drive go above approx 46c, and it is situated on the underside of the mobo too. I'd say, if you haven't built the system yet, and the m.2 would at least be accessible after build, then wait and see what temps you get before deciding.

 

2 minutes ago, roylapoutre said:

Tried both this : https://www.amazon.com/Mudder-Aluminum-Heatsink-Cooling-Raspberry/dp/B01LXWK626/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489360625&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=heatsink&psc=1 

 

and this : https://www.amazon.com/Enokay-Cooling-Heatsink-Raspberry-Heatsinks/dp/B014KKY3KI/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1489360625&sr=8-13&keywords=heatsink

 

They perform about the same (even though I expected copper to be a bit more effective)

Awesome. Thank you both. I'll see how it goes with and without the heatsinks and see what happens. 

[Monkey Dust]

I wouldn't worry too much. Unless you're running synthetic benchmarks the drive will only be working in short bursts, and they are designed to survive in laptops where they will almost certainly be getting less airflow than in your desktop.