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Author Topic: Overheating NVME drive  (Read 592 times)

andyptak

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Overheating NVME drive
« on: December 03, 2020, 04:52:01 pm »

I have an Asus PA90, a nifty, mini watercooled workstation that has some decent horsepower, with 2 M2 drives and a SATA SSD, all Samsung.

The overheating drive is a Samsung NVME 970 Evo Plus with my LR CAtalog, and it regularly hits 60 degrees Celsius. On a large import job today it hit 70 degrees. I already have a heatsink on it - not sure how good it is though.

Anyone have suggestions to cool this thing down, good model heatsink etc? Because it's a Mini there isn't a lot of room inside. Is there an external mod possible? Thanks.
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degrub

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2020, 11:32:58 pm »

Is one on the back side and the other on the top of the mb ? Might be part of the cause.
You may want to check that you did not put too much thermal transfer paste or have an air bubble on the one getting hotter.
Take the case off if you can to see if getting more air makes a difference. You can even point a fan at it.

Just a few thoughts from my old age.....
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geneo

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2020, 11:58:00 pm »

I have an Asus PA90, a nifty, mini watercooled workstation that has some decent horsepower, with 2 M2 drives and a SATA SSD, all Samsung.

The overheating drive is a Samsung NVME 970 Evo Plus with my LR CAtalog, and it regularly hits 60 degrees Celsius. On a large import job today it hit 70 degrees. I already have a heatsink on it - not sure how good it is though.

Anyone have suggestions to cool this thing down, good model heatsink etc? Because it's a Mini there isn't a lot of room inside. Is there an external mod possible? Thanks.

Is that the controller or the nand temperature. If controller that is fine, if nand probably fine. Is there any evidence it is throttling on speed (if it gets too hot it will slow down until it cools).
It may only need a little bit of good  airflow across it, which with a watercooled setup may not be there. A small fan might help. 
What heatsink?
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Joe Towner

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #3 on: December 04, 2020, 02:23:28 pm »

Is the pop-top up or down?  The online photos are of the outside, so we're really limited to know what happens inside.  I take it you purchased it pre-configured?  I'd reach back to your point of purchase - they may swap the NVMe drive for you.

-Joe

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andyptak

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #4 on: December 04, 2020, 04:47:49 pm »

Hi Joe. Actually I took the pop top right off and it made no difference. Right now I'm in the middle of a large LR import, 200K plus, because my old catalog became corrupted. As you can imagine the damn thing is going to take a while so I took the whole case off to get some more air into the unit while I do this and I transferred the catalog data to an external SSD while I continue this task. The second NVME which had contained the catalog is now sitting idle while this goes on and it sits at 47 degrees which I understand is normal.

Once the import is finished I'll transfer the catalog back to the NVME, put the case and lid back on and see what the temp is like on more regular use. I have a sinking feeling that the Samsung just runs hot - a lot of Google chatter on that subject - and I'll either get a WD Black as a replacment, or I'll get an external Thunderbolt SSD instead. The cost either way will be about equal but the big question is will the WD Black run just as hot because there isn't enough cooling in this machine for 2 NVME drives and I'll have wasted my money. The external option is looking good but it kind of defeats a major reason why I bought this unit.
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geneo

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #5 on: December 04, 2020, 06:08:57 pm »

Hi Joe. Actually I took the pop top right off and it made no difference. Right now I'm in the middle of a large LR import, 200K plus, because my old catalog became corrupted. As you can imagine the damn thing is going to take a while so I took the whole case off to get some more air into the unit while I do this and I transferred the catalog data to an external SSD while I continue this task. The second NVME which had contained the catalog is now sitting idle while this goes on and it sits at 47 degrees which I understand is normal.

Once the import is finished I'll transfer the catalog back to the NVME, put the case and lid back on and see what the temp is like on more regular use. I have a sinking feeling that the Samsung just runs hot - a lot of Google chatter on that subject - and I'll either get a WD Black as a replacment, or I'll get an external Thunderbolt SSD instead. The cost either way will be about equal but the big question is will the WD Black run just as hot because there isn't enough cooling in this machine for 2 NVME drives and I'll have wasted my money. The external option is looking good but it kind of defeats a major reason why I bought this unit.

Yes they run hot. But they start throttling bandwidth to reduce temperature at about 70c for protection, so they shouldn't get damaged.  The controller itself gets much hotter than the NAND (the temperature you are looking at if only one temperature is showing)  and can get up to around 90c.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 06:12:13 pm by geneo »
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andyptak

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #6 on: December 04, 2020, 06:17:54 pm »

Yes, I discovered the throttling which is why I had to change drives for rebuilding my catalog. It was taking forever to do and now that I have switched to an external SSD, which theoretically is slower, it is so much faster because it isn't throttling.

I have read a number of forums about the Samsung overheating though and many have commented on premature drive failure so I'm not sure about the not damaging part. I also came to understand that sustained heat can affect the data and I'm wondering if that's where my original LR catalog corruption came from.
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geneo

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Re: Overheating NVME drive
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2020, 07:55:31 pm »

Yes, I discovered the throttling which is why I had to change drives for rebuilding my catalog. It was taking forever to do and now that I have switched to an external SSD, which theoretically is slower, it is so much faster because it isn't throttling.

I have read a number of forums about the Samsung overheating though and many have commented on premature drive failure so I'm not sure about the not damaging part. I also came to understand that sustained heat can affect the data and I'm wondering if that's where my original LR catalog corruption came from.

Well, true, I think what you have to worry about is the controller temperature, but I think the throttle is on the NAND. I don't think people realize the controller in these 970 EVO Plus have 5 cpu cores that need cooled. A number of monitoring software monitors both temperatures.  If you can even get a little fan blowing air across the device it may help alot.  I have a 960 Pro with a passive motherboard heatsink on it, with fair airflow, and it doesn't crack 55c/40c (controller/nand) e.g. when scanning with malwarebytes. But that is in a mid-tower case.

It may just be inherent in the cooling capability of the PC design - it is awful compact and water-cooled so requires less airflow in general.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2020, 08:10:17 pm by geneo »
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