A small chip the size of a piece of gum capable of transferring data at speeds over 7000 MB/s. No wonder that under such brutal workloads, modern M.2 NVMe drives produce massive amounts of heat. Overheating isn't just about blowing hot air out of your computer case. For the drive itself, it's a matter of stability, performance, and internal protection mechanisms.
What is Thermal Throttling?
SSD manufacturers build protection against destruction directly into their devices, called Thermal Throttling. Here's roughly how it looks in practice:
- You are downloading a massive game on Steam (e.g., a 150 GB behemoth). The drive is at 100% load.
- The temperature of the small memory chips skyrockets. 50 °C... 60 °C...
- Once the drive reaches a critical threshold (usually around 70 to 75 °C), the controller chip artificially and radically slows down its performance so it doesn't melt.
- Write speeds instantly drop by as much as 80%. Suddenly, you're downloading slower than on an old PC with an HDD, and your Steam game gets stuck on "Writing to disk".
Once the SSD cools down, speeds recover. But under constant load (like during an installation), this means endless bouncing of performance up and down.
Does your specific drive need a Heatsink?
It depends heavily on the generation of the drive you installed in your rig:
- PCIe Gen 3.0 (speeds 2000 - 3500 MB/s): Usually do not need a heatsink. They don't produce enough heat and the airflow in your PC case is enough. The sticker placed on them by the manufacturer often serves to spread heat evenly. Never peel it off!
- PCIe Gen 4.0 (speeds 5000 - 7500 MB/s): A heatsink is highly recommended, and practically mandatory for the more powerful models. Under intense load, they overheat in mere seconds.
- PCIe Gen 5.0 (speeds over 10,000 MB/s): A heatsink is absolutely mandatory. These drives produce so much heat they are routinely sold with active coolers (small fans built-in).
How do I check my drive's temperature?
Want to know exactly how many degrees your drive is sitting at? Download a free program called
CrystalDiskInfo. It will show you current temperatures. If you regularly hit 70
°C while gaming or downloading, it's time to buy a heatsink.
👉 Read our guide
on SSD testing here.
What heatsink to buy and what to watch out for
Solving SSD temperature issues is thankfully one of the cheapest things you can do for your computer.
- Integrated motherboard heatsinks: Modern gaming motherboards already include massive "armor" screwed over the M.2 SSD slots. This metal plate contains a thermal pad underneath. Before installing, you must remove the protective plastic film! Then simply screw the plate back over your new SSD. In most cases, this is perfectly adequate.
- SSDs bought with manufacturer heatsinks: Many drives (e.g., Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink) are sold with metal glued on directly from the factory. It saves you work and the heatsink is fully optimized. But be careful – you cannot close such a drive under your motherboard's integrated cover! You'd have to leave the motherboard cover unscrewed forever.
- Cheap third-party passive heatsinks: If you have an older motherboard with no armor, you can buy an aftermarket heatsink for roughly 10-15 dollars/euros. It looks like an aluminum comb (often from brands like BeQuiet or Akasa) and mounts by easily snapping together with rubber bands or screws. Even the most basic aluminum heatsink drops temps by at least 15 °C.
Keep in mind that if you are putting an SSD into a laptop, there is absolutely no space for large heatsinks from a desktop PC. You must rely on the laptop manufacturer's specific cooling solution, or use extremely thin graphene pads.