how to cool msata?

The other day I was secure erasing some data on my msata drive and before I realized it's temperature went up to 80C, about 10c above it's supposed max operating temp of 70c (aren't they supposed to throttle when overheating?). Even at idle it's going above 50C, so I need some easy way to cool it off. Since I move laptop around, cooling pad is too cumbersome. I think the place this drive is located doesn't have any airflow, so it's just cooking. There is not much space above it, to put aluminum cooling fins and there is a paper with model number etc glued on top of memory chips to make it even more difficult (I don't want to take it off in case I need to return it). Another idea was to install small fan inside to move the air around, but I'm not sure where to get power supply without soldering or altering the laptop, again just in case I need to return it for warranty or something. Any other ideas from members here?

 

Best bet is to try attaching thermal pads. If they actually touch a metal surface, it would be a bonus.

 

Thanks for suggestion. I was thinking about it and actually picked one at computer store yesterday, but once I opened it, it came out to be very thin thermal pad, the type you put on cpu instead of thermal paste, but I need probably 2-3 mm thick.

 

Sheer curiosity on my end: which mSATA drive are we discussing here to begin with?

Personally, I'd be RMA-ing it after seeing such temps, but it's not my call to make.

Good luck.

 

Does anyone know if the firmware has any considerations for over-temp?

 

Yeah I'm with George on this one, send it back.

 

The drive is 840 EVO, 256GB. Actually I was secure erasing it to return it, but after erase I changed my mind and decided to keep it after all. I want to have fast msata for OS and bootup, I want to have 1TB HDD for data and want to have DVD drive (the other option was to put HDD in DVD caddy and use SSD as primary and USB 3 for DVD and I have everything already for each setup.) Secure erasing whole drive is probably as much stress as this drive will ever encounter and the question remains: is it a drive or laptop? I came to conclusion that any msata drive will be running hot, unless I do something and I'm not sure what other msata drive I would get instead of this, so that's why I decided to keep it, but I'm still kind of on a fence. Either way I want to cool off internals of this laptop somehow. As a matter of fact I have another laptop which I want to set up as cable DVR and that one runs too hot to my liking as well, so I'm looking for ideas on that as well. I probably will end up putting some extra fans inside and thermal pads for both. Going back to EVO, I tested it, no errors, speed is the same and if it fails, it has 3 yr warranty, so as long as I do regular backups, I should be fine.

 

Sounds like you thought it through. You made a good point about the secure erase, it survived the worse it will ever see without incident.

 

EVO? Return it while you can. (Wish you had mentioned this before).

See:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1512915/...es-benchmarks-needed-to-confirm-affected-ssds

See:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1507897/samsung-840-evo-read-speed-drops-on-old-written-data-in-the-drive


Yes, I've read every single post on those threads. Yes, the problems continue. Even after Samsung's fix last November. Yes, mSATA EVO's are affected. Yes the original TLC 840 Samsung drive is also affected, but is being ignored by Samsung (still). Yes the problem of slow read speeds for old files returns for user after a few weeks or around the 3 month range.

No, this drive is not worth betting on.


See:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1512915/...ed-to-confirm-affected-ssds/400#post_23669608

26MB/s is 1990's HDD speeds. Or circa 2000 USB 2.0 speeds (barely).

Not what you want to build a boot drive off of.


Now, you have the proper information to act on this.

RMA.

 

+1 and then some right here.

 

Yeesh! I didn't know those SSDs had such a problem. I'll eat my words, return it.

 

Or eMMC...

Performance has been regressing in all sorts of ways over the past couple years, all in the name of lower power and lower price. The EVO and TLC are simply small parts of that ugly picture.

 

The 840 Evo doesn't show the problems of the 2.5" version but whichever way, it's TLC junk.. return it OP... those temps are absurd too.. Even the Crucial M550 mSATA which has a reputation for being hot doesn't hit 80C...

 

Don't know why you think mSATA versions don't show the same issues.

But Samsung does.

See:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/us/html/support/downloads.html

 

So I replaced msata 840 evo with msata 850 evo. It may be one of those "walking from the shower into the rain" things, time will tell, but it has longer warranty, more writing cycles and nand cells are larger, therefore hopefully more stable over time. As a side note, after reading literally hundreds of posts about 840 evo issues, none mentioned loss of data (at least I have not seen one) which IMO would be much bigger deal. New drive still runs hot, similar to 840, so will need to address this issue no matter what.
Thank you everybody for comments.

 

It sure sounds that way to me.

I fail to understand why people agree to dealing with issues of this nature instead of taking their business elsewhere, but that's me.

Good luck.

 

Well, for starters 850 is on sale since mid Nov. and I have not seen any slow down reports yet.
850 NAND uses 40nm litography against 19 nm in 840, therefore more robust.
Samsung seems to be leading semiconductor business, Intel and Toshiba just announced 3D nand with products maybe withing 6-8 months, where Samsung is shipping those for months already and new tech sometimes brings some unexpected issues.
Frankly I don't expect problems, but if I have, easy to overcome, not more cumbersome than doing full back up/restore, something I did 5 times last week alone thanks to wonderful Win 8 erasing my disk. I have another SSD (not Samsung) barely 2 months old, that gives me file errors, corruptions etc., something I never encountered with 840 evo I returned, even with more data written. And if you wonder why people do silly things, me too: why people still buy Nvidia video cards after that soldering joints fiasco few years ago, or Apple telling people they hold the phone wrong. In other words if I had to avoid every company that messed up big time I would have to live in cave with nothing and I'm not trying to excuse Samsung in any way, they still have to fix that 840 EVO mess somehow, but 850 is different and I expect better.