Why SSD fans are a waste of money (with one major exception)
Modern NVMe SSDs are incredibly fast. They can move tens of gigabytes of data in minutes, but all that speed comes at a price: heat. Adding a heatsink is a great way to protect a fast NVMe from overheating, but you don’t need to go too far by getting a model with a small cooling fan.
NVMe heatsinks are essential for the lifespan of an SSD
Your NVMe will be toast without one
Before we dive into active or passive NVMe cooling (fan or no fan), let’s first explain why these drives even need pieces of metal in the first place.
Modern NVMe PCIe Gen 4 and especially Gen 5 can get extremely hot during long file transfers. Without a heatsink, temperatures can easily rise above 85°C, accelerating wear and tear on the NVMe controller and even NAND flash over extended periods of time.
To combat this heat buildup, an NVMe limits its performance when it recognizes that it is at a critical temperature, but even then it remains very hot until the transfer is complete, significantly reducing its lifespan.
Even if you don’t move large files around often, an NVMe can still overheat and fail during regular use if your PC doesn’t have good airflow around the drive. Since NVMe are typically located between the CPU and GPU, they are in one of the hottest locations in a system.
Fortunately, most modern motherboards include at least one NVMe heatsink, which is usually all you need for a single drive. If your motherboard doesn’t have one, or if you have multiple drives, a passive NVMe heatsink with a bottom bracket, like the Arctic M2 Pro, is an inexpensive and effective solution.
Active NVMe coolers are excessive in a consumer PC
It’s such a good thing
Passive NVMe heatsinks do a pretty decent job of absorbing the heat from an NVMe, but they still rely on your PC’s airflow to dissipate it. Adding a small fan directly to the heatsink can remove this heat much more effectively.
This is essentially the problem that NVMe heatsinks with fans, like the Thermalright HR10 2280 Pro and the Thermaltake MS-1, try to solve.
As expected, these active heatsinks do a great job of cooling NVMe. Tom’s Hardware tested several NVMe heatsinks using a PCIe Gen 5 drive, and the Thermalright HR10 2280 Pro was near the top, with a few other solutions active. It reached a maximum of 50°C during the torture test, which is extremely harsh and not representative of real-world use.
However, most of the time your NVMe won’t need this level of cooling, even when transferring large files. If you look closer at Tom’s Hardware’s test, several passive heatsinks, like the ID-Cooling Zero M15 (available on AliExpress for around $10), also held up very well, topping out at 63°C. This is comfortably below the 75°C threshold at which Gen 5 drives start to throttle.
The main problem with these small fans is that they can get extremely noisy, often producing a constant, quiet but annoying whirring sound that can bother you when browsing the web or working.
Another drawback that many bulky NVMe heatsinks face is compatibility. They might not fit larger air-cooled CPU coolers, and you’ll often have to sacrifice a fan connector on your motherboard or a fan hub to power the fan, which can complicate your build.
Finally, fans are moving parts, and because they’re so small, dust buildup can cause premature failure, leaving you with a passive solution that you probably paid extra for.
Stop Running Your NVMe “Bare”: Why Modern SSDs Need a Heatsink
Your SSD is hotter than it should be, and it’s only going to get worse
NVMe enclosures are a whole different story
Enclosures are a special case
While fans don’t really have a place on NVMe heatsinks inside a desktop, it’s a completely different story with NVMe cases.
Passive NVMe heatsinks can dissipate heat efficiently because they benefit from the airflow generated by the rest of your system, but a case can get extremely hot if it only has a metal case to rely on to dissipate heat.
Additionally, if you have an NVMe in an enclosure, chances are you’ll use it primarily for file transfers. Given the high cost of these drives, you probably use yours often and want to maximize both its lifespan and transfer speeds.
For these reasons, a high-quality case with a fan may make more sense than a fanless solution, provided you can afford the higher cost.
Only get an active NVMe heatsink if you absolutely need it
Workstation owners rejoice
In reality, most PC owners don’t have to worry about NVMe temperatures once a passive heatsink is installed. Unless you enjoy transferring large files for fun, your NVMe will rarely reach dangerous operating temperatures, making a heatsink with fan completely overkill.
Honestly, the only time you should consider one of these solutions is if you’re running a workstation and your workflow is NVMe storage heavy, like video or image editing. They can also be a solid cooling solution if you’re using an M.2 AI inference accelerator.
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