970 EVO PLUS 2TB - Heatsink

[blade8079]

Hi All,

Ordered this baby up to reduce load temps for my ssd. It idles around 43-45 C but under load went to 83 once!
https://www.newegg.ca/p/37B-002M-00001?Item=9SIADDZ7550038

I've been copying data simultaneously to this SSD from 5 SD cards at 90mb/s per card which gave me about 450mb/s transfer speeds for 150-160gb of data. The temp went up to 72-73 degrees during the copy process (teracopy) but once the copying was done I would've expected the drive to cool off but instead it went to 83C from 73C during that time...?? Very weird! I wouldn't notice throttling as the speeds were low to begin with. Obviously it did cool off shortly after but it was just strange! I have plenty of airflow in the case and the idle temp shows that, however, I've decided to get a heatsink for it. Currently using the PCI-E to m.2 adapter card for it.

What I wanted to ask is if I need to apply thermal pads to both sides of the evo plus since the chips are only on one side? What pad thickness should I use for each side if I need to apply to both?

Thank you!

 

[UsandThem]

What I wanted to ask is if I need to apply thermal pads to both sides of the evo plus since the chips are only on one side? What pad thickness should I use for each side if I need to apply to both?

It's likely the thermal pads are needed on both sides for the proper spacing of the heatsink, and in the description it states:

Its mandatory to mount thermal pads on both sides of the M.2 NVMe SSD.

It comes with three thermal pads of different thickness, so you'll just have to see which two fits your SSD the best. Plus, it should come with instructions, and you can always change the pad out if it's too thin or too thick, as they don't have a permanent adhesion.

 

[arandomguy]

SSDs need to do background "housekeeping" activity that isn't directly exposed to the user, often during idle (by design choice). For instance your SSD I believe has a dynamic SLC cache size of up to 78GB. Initially it will write to this cache (bear in mind it isn't an actual separate cache but a dynamically configured portion existing NAND space). This means at some point it will need to "convert" that as otherwise it'll be taking up essentially 234GB of overall capacity. So that is likely one among many of the activities being done post your copy, so it's still doing work (possibly more work).

 

[blade8079]

Thank you! Still it's insane to think these can heat up to 83C under so-so load.. My case has plenty of airflow and 3 other nvme drives in mobo m.2 slots (4 total with pci to m.2 card 2x 960 pro and 1x 960 evo) and they mostly heat up to 60ish C under load...

Makes me think if it's a temperature issue with 970 evo plus design or something.

 

[UsandThem]

Makes me think if it's a temperature issue with 970 evo plus design or something.

I have one as well, they just run hot. However, Samsung designed them that way, so I don't think there's anything to really worry about. They are designed to throttle if they exceed their temperature specs.

Even though they run withing Samsung specs, I also put a heatsink on mine as well.

 

[gg2]

I have one as well, they just run hot. However, Samsung designed them that way, so I don't think there's anything to really worry about. They are designed to throttle if they exceed their temperature specs.

Even though they run withing Samsung specs, I also put a heatsink on mine as well.

Hmm, according to Samsung, operating temperature 0-70°C:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/970evoplus/

and in the datasheet they only recommend proper airflow, no mention of heatsink.

I don't have one yet (planned for next build), but if it can run up to 83° on just background stuff... what does it mean, throttling is just not too invasive?

 

[UsandThem]

Hmm, according to Samsung, operating temperature 0-70°C:
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/970evoplus/

and in the datasheet they only recommend proper airflow, no mention of heatsink.

I don't have one yet (planned for next build), but if it can run up to 83° on just background stuff... what does it mean, throttling is just not too invasive?

My unit without a heatsink only reached 73c: https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...th-benchmark-and-temps.2561330/#post-39740529

And I believe the 70c from the Samsung specs is for the ambient temperature range, as they also list non-operating temperature range (and most reviews shows the controller temperature going over 70c):
https://www.storagereview.com/samsung_970_evo_plus_2tb_review



https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/samsung_970_evo_plus_2tb_nvme_m_2_ssd_review,6.html

 

[thor23]

heatsink is probably overkill, looks like it's the controller getting hot and heating everything else up on the ssd, maybe just a tiny rasberrypi type heatsink/thermal pad on the controller would be enough. I had the same problem with my sata bx500.

 

[blade8079]

Did a test today:

Installed a bottom corsair ml120 pro fan. The idle temp went to about 41-42 degrees and the load temp during the 5 sd card copying went to 69 degrees vs 73 without.
After the copy was done the temp climbed to 79 degrees and then started cooling off. Slight boost at a tradeoff of a noisy fan as bottom fans are far noisier than anything else due to echo effect under the case. Might eventually disconnect it to avoid listening to it)

Waiting for the heatsink to come in next week to do the comparison.

Would you also remove the sticker from 970 evo plus or put the heatsink on top of it?

 

[aigomorla]

what im curious even more is how your pulling off 450mb/s transfer speeds off usb3.0 on 5 different SD readers.
That is just outrageously insane, as you could easily RAID0 those and use them as fast storage which exceeds SATA SSD speeds.

 

[blade8079]

I have 6 of these:
https://www.kingston.com/en/memory-card-readers/mobilelite-g4
Good for 12 sdhc, sxhc
I also got usb3 anker hub

Anker usually handles 4 simultaneous transfers max (about 300mb bandwith and then speed is split among all the other cards once it goes above 300 or so with more cards transferring simultaneously) and I also have 2 ports on my desktop which I use in addition to anker which will give me close to 500mb/s speed combined. I got 5tb of nvme ssd storage so RAID is an overkill I think)

My other problem after that is hitting the "Z" drive letter limit with too many cards plugged - I haven't experimented going over english alphabet lettering and see if it will show the card in windows. If I use 12 cards then I will get the "Z" drive letter on the 12th one.

I do a lot of video editing and I transfer huge amounts of data weekly. Say 100gb of uncompressed video data on a card x12 is 1.2T of data which I need transferred at most. I would've bought 970 pro 2tb if they had them as my other 960 pro handles these tasks without 70 degree warm-up.. 960 pro 2tb is hard to find now too... Throttling is not an issue for me as I don't even hit throttle speeds @500mb/s

 

[blade8079]

Update: Installed the heatsink today (did not remove ssd sticker)

It came with no manual (JEYI) brand. I put the 0.5mm (single sided sticky area?) on bottom and 1mm (double sided sticky area) on the chips.
so far during the copying temp went up to 61-62 (vs 72-73) and hit a max (after copying was done) of 67-68 (vs 83) on 2 tests of 150 and 230gb transfers

 

[thor23]

Sounds good. I noticed my Sata3 ssd gets really hot too after I fill the slc cache and it starts writing straight to qlc, I think it needs more power to write to qlc cells than slc( I know they're the same cells).

 

[KentState]

I wonder if this is unique to the 2TB version. I just did a test where I copied 120GB at 500 MB/s and it maxed at 57C on my 1TB 970 EVO. Maybe at twice the number of memory chips, it works a lot harder or that they stack more cells.

 

[blade8079]

I actually have evo plus. Do you have evo or evo plus?

My old 960 evo 1tb never heats up as much... Heatsink solved it so I am not too fussed now)