Do SSDs need a heatsink? If you’re pushing your gaming machine hard, you might find the answer is yes.
What is a heatsink?
A heatsink moves heat away from a device. They’re typically make of highly conductive materials so they can quickly absorb and dissipate heat. When PCs draw more power, they can generate more heat, which requires heatsinks to disperse. All modern CPUs and GPUs need heatsinks. Many even have an additional fan or liquid cooling to keep from overheating. But why are SSDs adopting them?
Do we need them?
Initially SSDs had form factors similar to HDDs. As the market matured, Flash grew smaller and sleeker. Most internal drives are in the M.2 format, the size and shape of a stick of gum. As well as being cable-free, M.2 supports the NVMe protocol and PCIe interface. This protocol was written so SSDs could take full advantage of their speed, reading and writing in parallel. SSDs sprint where hard disk drives only walk. However, sprinting creates heat for computers as well as humans. The waste heat caused by power usage of high-speed SSDs can be sufficient to endanger the safe operation of the system. To avoid this, SSDs will throttle their performance to avoid damage. That’s good: you don’t want to fry your drive because it’s working too hard. However, it also means your drive will slow down when you’re using it the most.
Sony has stated all SSDs added to a PS5 need a heatsink. Thanks Sony! Other video and design software engineers may not have Sony’s voice, but the principles are the same. Intense usage can necessitate a heatsink to avoid failure, especially in areas with low airflow. But heatsink manufacturers are doing their best to keep performance sustainable. The Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with heatsink can sustain read speeds of 7,300MB/s, and write speeds of 7,000MB/s.
What makes a good heatsink?
The material used in the conductor and the heatsink design is crucial. Aluminum and graphene make great conducting materials. Both have a remarkable ability to dissipate heat. Kingston’s FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD with heatsink is made from a graphene-aluminum combo. These materials are a factor in unit cost, as is the design. However, better materials and designs mean a better job of cooling the drive.
It's easy to make this decision when manufacturers like Kingston list their performance numbers with their heatsinks. Once you figure out your sustain read/write requirements, you can select a heatsink accordingly. And then you will have the upper hand over your friends with unprotected SSDs, and win even when skill suggests you shouldn’t…
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0:00 Intro
0:43 What is a heatsink
1:13 Do we need them
3:18 What makes a good heatsink?
4:04 Outro
