CPU Tower-Style Cooler for M.2 SSDs Can Reduce Temps by over 50%

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Makes me wonder if I should have installed that heatsink on my m.2 when I installed it.... years ago. Eh, it'll be fine...

That reminds me. It wouldn't be a bad idea to keep crystal mark or some other software that pulls the temps running during a decent gaming session. We see those metrics all the time in benches but for stuff like this, it could be worth knowing about for real-world usage. I'm sure media-content creation would generate some interesting numbers. If everybody and their dog is going to push coolers for m.2 drives it stands to reason there should be some real use-based data to back it up and not some synthetic bench that ends in a matter of minutes or seconds.

 

[DrezKill]

There is a weird slot on the motherboard called DIMM.2, which utilizes the same physical slot as used for RAM, but with a blocking bar so you cant install RAM in it. Instead the slot has PCIe lanes wired to it. It is intended for installing a DIMM.2 expansion card, that has three m.2 slots in it.

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

I love all the PCIe lanes on the Threadripper.

D4mn straight.

 

[Dan_D]

That's not the strangest place on this motherboard there are m.2 slots...

There is a weird slot on the motherboard called DIMM.2, which utilizes the same physical slot as used for RAM, but with a blocking bar so you cant install RAM in it. Instead the slot has PCIe lanes wired to it. It is intended for installing a DIMM.2 expansion card, that has three m.2 slots in it.

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So, between the three on board m.2 slots (two under the motherboard heat spreader, and one on the back of the board) and the three slots in the DIMM.2 riser, there are 5 m.2 slots on this motherboard.

Then I guess I could add more by sticking those 16x PCIe to 4 m.2 slot risers in here as well.

I love all the PCIe lanes on the Threadripper.

I'm a fan of the DIMM.2 cards. I've got one in my machine now since I'm running the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme.

 

[LazyGamer]

I wish ASUS put DIMM.2 slots on more boards... many of their lower-end models rely on occupying the single x4 slot, which limits other expansion options.

 

[Dan_D]

I wish ASUS put DIMM.2 slots on more boards... many of their lower-end models rely on occupying the single x4 slot, which limits other expansion options.

It's been something they've often only put on "Extreme" and "APEX" models. The Formula and STRIX models don't get it. None of the other product lines do either.

 

[LazyGamer]

I potentially do see why - unless it's a board with two RAM slots (APEX), adding the DIMM.2 slot generally means EATX depth is needed (ignoring ITX here).

Not a problem for many / most enthusiasts, but definitely a problem for their STRIX and below lines.

Still, I'd be down if they put it between otherwise vacant expansion slots. Having M.2 slots flat on the board is just inconvenient for most.

 

[Zarathustra]

I wish ASUS put DIMM.2 slots on more boards... many of their lower-end models rely on occupying the single x4 slot, which limits other expansion options.

I'd imagine there are limits to where you can do this based on available PCIe lanes.

Easy to do on a threadripper where you have 64 lanes.

Possibly possible on traditional traditional 40 lane Intel HEDT platforms as well.

It gets challenging on a 24 lane system, where 16 of those lanes need to be used by the GPU, 4 lanes are used by the chipset, leaving only 4 lanes left over.

 

[LazyGamer]

I'd imagine there are limits to where you can do this based on available PCIe lanes.

Sure, but ASUS does put these on their top-end (many) Z690 boards. In many cases there are many caveats as to which PCIe slots are disabled when using particular NVMe slots, or if slots (including the main 16x slot!) run with only half their lanes / speed.

There's flexibility, but also compromises involved, where HEDT as you say doesn't need to make those compromises.

 

[Zarathustra]

I just grabbed mine from the box (not currently using it) and while I could have sworn there were two slots on one side and one on the other, it turns out I was wrong. Just one on each side.

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I will say this though, having recently had to pull out one of the SSD's under the motherboard heat spreader, requiring me to remove my NIC, and my GPU and thus break into my water loop (thank the good lord for QDC's) this DIMM.2 slot is certainly more accessible, making it easier to replace M.2 drives...

The one on the bottom of the motherboard? Yeah that one is probably in there semi-permanently. I don't look forward to removing the motherboard to take it out. That's why I installed that one when I built the system rather than use the second slot on the top. I figured if I want to add another m.2 drive over time, I'd rather have it be one on the top, not one on the bottom.

Just figured I'd report back that I tried using this thing today, and wanted to share my experience.

So, I was booting off of a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro, and used my old 2TB Sabrent Rocket 4 as my steam library drive (because I don't trust it for data I can't replace, and I can always just redownload the steam library...

Anyway, Amazon's Prime Day sale on the 2TB 990 Pro's was too good to pass on at $129 each, so I decided to just get a couple.

I replaced the 980 Pro and the Sabrent Rocket 4 in the motherboards first two m.2 slots with the new 990 Pro's, and stuck the old ones in the DIMM.2 modules.

I proceeded to boot up from a Linux USB stick in order to duplicate the two old drives to the new 990 Pro's.

I used the dd command under Linux as follows:
dd if=/dev/<source drive> bs=100M status=progress of=/dev/<target drive>

I thought it was odd and disappointing that the average transfer speed was only ~1.4GB/s, but I figured these are TLC drives so I guess I just consumed the faster cache in doing an entire drive image.

Then when it was done, I shut the computer down and removed the DIMM.2 device to do a test boot before I wiped the old drives.

The DIMM.2 module was hotter than the sun. Like, I'm the kind of guy who when the server says "watch out, this plate is hot" I always have to touch it to feel it for myself. I've never felt a plate that was as hot as this DIMM.2 module. I could barely hold on to it long enough to get it out of the slot. We are talking right up there at the pain threshold, whatever that is.

I can only presume my low speeds were due to thermal throttling. I never monitored the drive temps during the copy operation, but there is no way they weren't at Tj max.

So, if you are going to use this slot, you may need to get extra cooling. At least if you plan to simultaneously sequentially read the entirety of two 2TB drives both in the DIMM.2 module.

I was going to leave the drives in there as extra storage space since I already have them, but now I am questioning that. Maybe they won't get as hot during typical use. After all, it's not every day you sequentially read the entirety of a drive.

Or maybe I could stick some additional heatsink or small fan on it. it is right up against the RAM slots on one side though...

 

[Zarathustra]

I hate when people use "percentage reduction" when referring to temperature. celcius and Fahrenheit zero is completely arbitrary and different from eachother, which makes "percentage reduction" completely arbitrary.

I suppose if you use Kelvin it has some better inherent meaning.

I think if you do it on a delta T it makes more sense.

Example:

Percentage reduction in temperature above ambient (CPU temp - ambient temp) could be a useful metric.