Picture this, two PlayStation consoles and two friends.
They have been playing for an hour when one suggests doing a speed run.
In less than two minutes it is clear that victory will be mine because my friend is starting to lag.
Unfortunately, my friend didn't take my advice to get a heatsink for her SSD.
After this video, I am sure that you will, however. This is DIY in 5.
Hey everyone! My name is Trisha and you are watching DIY in 5
the show where we make tech simple enough that you can DIY it in 5 min or less.
Today we are discussing heatsinks. Specifically, we will answer the following question.
Do SSDs need a heatsink? Hmmm, let's review.
A heatsink's role is the same as a car radiator: to move heat away from a device.
The difference is that heatsinks are usually made of a highly conductive material,
to quickly absorb and dissipate excessive heat to the surrounding air.
As PCs continue to draw more power, they can generate more heat, making heatsinks necessary.
All modern CPUs and GPUS require heatsinks and many even require an additional fan or liquid cooling to keep the devices from overheating.
Got it. So why are SSDs adopting them?
When SSDs were introduced, their initial form factor was closer to traditional HDDs.
This enabled SSDs to replace HDDs without requiring system changes.
However, this design changed as the PC market continued to mature.
Flash went from this to this.
Most internal drives are now M.2 format: small, sleek, and connecting cable-free to the motherboard.
M.2 also supports the NVMe protocol and PCIe interface.
The NVMe protocol was written specifically for SSDs to take advantage of their speed, leveraging their ability to read and write in parallel.
Combined with NVMe's support of PCIe, it's as if hard disk drives are walking and SSDs are sprinting.
But you can't sprint without heating up, and that applies to high performance SSDs too.
The amount of electricity an SSD uses as it simultaneously reads and writes to its trillions of NAND flash cells
at high speed generates significant amounts of waste heat.
Houston, we don't have a problem. We just need a heatsink!
SSDs will throttle their performance to protect their internal components. I.E., when my friend started lagging from earlier.
This was caused by the SSD reaching a temperature that was outside of the range for normal long-term operation.
The good news is that there is built-in protection for frying your drive.
The bad news is that your drive will underperform at times when you need it to actually do otherwise.
Officially Sony has said that any SSD added to a PS5 needs a heatsink. This eliminated the guesswork among gamers. Thanks Sony!
Now in the video and design world, someone may not be as vocal as Sony, but the same rules apply.
Intense usage when your drive reads or writes very large data files may require a heatsink, especially in environments with low airflow.
Thankfully heatsink manufacturers are trying to make sure that we have sustainable performance.
For example, Kingston FURY Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD with heatsink can sustain read slash write speeds of 7,300 MB/s read or 7,000MB/s write.
What makes a good SSD heatsink?
If you answered marketing you would be terribly wrong.
The answer is the material used in the conductor and the heatsink's design.
Many studies have shown that Aluminium and Graphene make great conducting materials.
Now, this does come with a cost. Graphene and Aluminum don't grow on Trees.
So the cost of the heatsink will vary due to the conducting material used and/or the design.
The designs that do a better job of pushing the heat to the outside air will usually cost more.
Ultimately, the decision is yours but note that you don't have to be a scientist to make the decision.
For example, Kingston will list their performance numbers with said heatsink.
Once you figure out what your sustain read/write requirements are you can select a heatsink accordingly.
And I will say this. I play a lot of games but I don't claim to be the best.
Unfortunately, my friends' outdated tech choices are doing their best to say otherwise.
Oh well, a win is a win. If you found this video useful, please do give us a like
and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss out on any future tech tips.
Until next time, my name's Trisha Hershberger and you've been watching DIY in 5!