Solid-state drives (SSDs) have been around for quite some time, and they have significantly revolutionized the storage industry. With the introduction of NVMe SSDs, storage performance has become astonishing, with read and write speeds that can easily max out in excess of 3,000MB/s. However, as the demand for faster and more advanced technologies increases, these NVMe drives have started overheating, leading to a decrease in performance.

To combat such overheating, the answer has been to add a heatsink. However, the bigger question is, does your M.2 NVMe SSD need a heatsink? This article will cover that very question, providing you the necessary knowledge on whether to invest in a heatsink for your system or not.

On paper, an NVMe SSD generates less heat than a standard SSD since it lacks the ability to defragment. The chip on an NVMe drive that does the heavy lifting is small and is responsible for drawing a minimal amount of power compared to its HDD counterparts. However, because the chip is small and crammed into a tiny M.2 form factor, heat dissipation becomes a challenge.

Thermal throttling is a performance-reducing mechanism in which an NVMe drive scales back on its performance due to overheating. Therefore, if you’re facing performance issues with your NVMe SSD, it’s time to investigate if your drive is overheating. Most modern motherboards come with built-in heatsinks installed over the M.2 slot. This feature helps to dissipate any heat generated by the NVMe drive.

On the other hand, some SSDs ship with factory-fitted heatsinks that may be a little more capable in cooling than their motherboard counterparts. These heatsinks come in various sizes and designs ranging from slimline options to massive stacks of copper heatsinks.

To verify the effect of heatsinks on NVMe SSD performance, we ran tests to see whether the built-in motherboard heatsinks were sufficient or the extra cost of purchasing an aftermarket heatsink was worth it.

Our test involved using a stable M.2 NVMe SSD on a motherboard with a built-in heatsink, followed by installing an aftermarket heatsink. We then ran the same stress test on the NVMe SSD to check whether there was any difference between the two.

The tests showed that the aftermarket heatsink led to a reduction in operating temperatures compared to the motherboard heatsink, and as a result, led to better sustained performance because of reduced thermal throttling. Even though the improved sustained read/write speeds were minimal, the thermal reduction has long-term benefits regarding drive durability.

It is important to note that heatsinks are not a necessity for all M.2 NVMe SSDs. Only drives that are subjected to intensive workloads that last for extended periods may need a heatsink to operate at optimal performance for longer. However, if you plan to use your NVMe SSD for long hours, investing in an aftermarket heat sink will help to reduce thermal throttling significantly.

In summary, if you’re looking to improve your NVMe SSD performance, investing in a heatsink could be an excellent move. Though, if you are a typical home user who uses their system for everyday work such as browsing, photo editing, or video editing, then the stock heatsink will suffice. On the other hand, if you are a user who does a lot of gaming, video rendering, machine learning, or heavy disk-intensive workloads, we recommend purchasing an aftermarket heatsink to keep your NVMe SSD cool, thus improving durability and performance.