Question Replacing/Upgrading NVMe Drive

[mastertech01]

Ive ordered an upgrade NVMe drive to install on a Gigabyte Aorus Z490 Xtreme board with onboard NVMe heatsink. The onboard sink has a strip of heat transfer tape on both sides of the motherboard M.2 socket. What can I expect to happen when I remove the sink from the current NVMe drive I have in there after a few months normal usage. Will it be a goopy glob or will it come off intact? Will it permanently attach to both the NVMe drive in there and sink and need to be replaced on both sides? I noticed it was quite tacky when I removed the original protective film from the sink but Ive never removed one after its been in use. Is the heat transfer tape readily available if needed?

Thanks

 

[Tech Junky]

It's like the stuff you find on a CC in the mail. If you peel it slowly it should all come off just fine. If you do it right you can reuse the strip. Use some gloves if you want to reuse it to avoid getting the oils on your skin on the strip which affects the adhesive but, really in this instance the tacky adhesive isn't necessary. It's there to keep the stirp from moving when you're moving the drive around.

The silicon strips can probably be picked up at a local electronics store but, they're typically cheaper online. Most of the time they're not even necessary. I don't use them and considering removing the MOBO plates covering my drives to cool them better. Sometimes the extra effort put in place doesn't equate to better performance.

nvme-pci-0100
Adapter: PCI adapter
Composite:    +42.9°C  (low  =  -5.2°C, high = +83.8°C)
                       (crit = +87.8°C)

So, the first is on my server w/ the plates I was referring to. The first in the screengrab is in my laptop but, both drives are SN850's which appear to run a bit hotter than other drives. The 2nd drive in the screengrab is a PNY CS3030 which you can see is running 16 degrees cooler.

Temps on drives need to be somewhat warm to run efficiently anyway and normal idle temps usually sit around 30C. Unless you're constantly moving huge amounts of data the controller won't typically get toasty. When you're moving / cloning a drive though it will get warmer due to the constant transfer but, this won't affect anything long term. You'll still get the speed when booting / loading a large file as those are limited time bursts of data. Most of the time the drives are idle and aren't producing that much heat.

 

[mastertech01]

Thanks, I appreciate the reply. Yes they wont be used for large transfers often.

 

[Tech Junky]

I would just put the new drive in and use HWINFO to monitor the temps w/o bothering with the strips. They're a PITA to deal with and don't always improve temps to an extent where they improve the drive speed significantly. The drive itself makes a difference in how it performs.

 

[mastertech01]

OK thanks. Ill just have to see how it all comes out. I havent had a problem with temps the way it is right now for my usage. I just needed to know if they disintegrate on removal or come apart pretty much intact.

I dont use them in my laptop, they just have the little label on them and stay pretty cool in there.

 

[Tech Junky]

It's not going to disintegrate like a dried paste as it's more like a gel. It should come off in one piece.

 

[mastertech01]

Great, thanks for the information!