Next generations of M.2 SSDs may require active cooling

Sebastian Jean, chief technical officer of the SSD console manufacturer Phison, spoke about his expectations for future generations of SSDs in interviews last year. He spoke, among other things, about an increase in power consumption and heat production, and that the need for active SSD cooling is unimaginable in the future. at More recent interviews Sebastian goes into more detail on this topic.

With expected speeds in excess of 10Gbps, we will see significant performance gains with the next generation of m.2 SSDs using PCIe 5.0. Phison already has some ideas for making SSDs run more efficiently, but Sebastian expects temperatures to rise anyway. SSD controllers can handle this; Temperatures as high as 125°C shouldn’t be a problem. For NAND chips, the maximum temperature is much lower: between 70 and 85 degrees.

Sebastian compares his predictions to the history of video cards: first heatsinks, then a small fan and finally comprehensive cooling solutions. On the other hand, there are already successors to PCIe 5.0 connectivity in development that allow for better heat conduction through the motherboard, so that only passive heatsinks will suffice.

So it can still go either way with m.2 SSDs. Anyway, some companies have already prepared themselves: ElecGear and Jonsbo announced small fan SSD coolers in December. Compact air cooling isn’t known for being quiet, so perhaps the TeamGroup Integrated Water Cooling System announced last week is a better solution. The first “gen-5” hard drives are expected to appear later this year.

source:
Phison . Blog