SSD Advice for the Self-Declared Uneducated

[Captain Kirks Son]

I am wanting to buy a Seagate BarraCuda 510 NVME m.2 SSD - just wanting/needing to know WHAT Heat Sinks are compatible (as it doesn't come with one) and where can I find this information.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Captain Kirks Son
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[mariushm]

Why would you assume it needs one? 

It doesn't need any heatsink... it can run 24/7 at 60+ degrees Celsius without any negative effects.

 

[Captain Kirks Son]

Thanks for the advice, however the research I have done (Tom's Hardware, PC Mag, Segate) have all stated that ALL NVME M.2 SSD's need one

[Tan3l6]

Some motherboards have integrated heatsinks. I mean just an aluminium strip mounted against top of the SSD.

For example it's more than enough for Adata SX8200 Pro 1TB. It never exceeds 50C.

[mariushm]

17 minutes ago, Captain Kirks Son said:

Thanks for the advice, however the research I have done (Tom's Hardware, PC Mag, Segate) have all stated that ALL NVME M.2 SSD's need one

Flash memory is not really hurt by high-ish temperatures. As long as it stays within reasonable temperatures, it's fine .. Reasonable means under around 75-80c

 

The controller chip cares about temperature a bit more, but majority of controllers on the market are rated for up to around 85c - as long as they're kept below around 80c they will work perfectly fine and they won't throttle speeds. 

The controller will only heat up when there's long periods of data transfer ... for example installing a 50-100 GB game. Even then, look with your HWInfo or other tools at the temperature and see how warm the controller gets. If it stays around 60c, you don't need a heatsink. 

 

The sticker on the SSD is actually thermally conductive and will "pull" heat from the SSD controller and spread it across the surface of all chips, acting like a heatsink. 

 

You probably misunderstood what Tom's hardware says.  A heatsink may be required if you have a pci-e 4.0 ssd that does 4+ GB/s reads and 3+ GB/s writes and you use that SSD constantly doing lots of writes. 

Your SSD is reviewed here on Tom's Hardware : https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/seagate-barracuda-510-ssd,6150-2.html

It consumes 0.4w idle and goes up to 2.5w when writing a lot of stuff (50 GB in their tests) - 2.5 watts across that big size SSD is not enough to raise the temperature of the SSD to even 50c. 

So you're fine without a heatsink.

 

[Captain Kirks Son]

Thanks for the advice @mariushm. I will take your advice, however (fortune favours the prepared) I will purchase a heat sink just in case. Never hurts to have one ready if needed.