Portable Storage devices and some limits

[beanflying]

No idea where this is going but it started with me buying a dirt cheap External USB NVMe HD and a 1Tb WD 770 Black to go in it. This generated some discussion in the 'what did you buy today thread' about in particular heat issues and external HDD's and now Solid State HD's.

So just some basic experimental data using 'Crystal Disk Mark' to generate some consistent loads and CPUID's Hardware monitor to keep an eye on the internal Temperatures of the drives under load.

Same basic tests (so far) 5x 1Gb test data using long read writes down to shorter more choppy reads and writes typically not what you would be using an external drive for.

The old 3 1/2" Seagate is a relic and I have since donated it to a mate of mine, no temp data was available from it but I have never felt it get even warm during multi hundred Gb backups in the past.

The 2 1/2" WD is part of my NAS disaster recovery pack if it is ever needed. Typically it gets plugged in and I go to bed while the NAS does it's thing. Slow speed isn't an issue and unless you were running it in an Aussie Summer on short read writes then Temps are unlikely to ever be an issue. To this end I can't see any point doing further testing but feel free to test your own spinny ones and add the data.

Now where it gets really interesting 

Below is just a first round of testing based on a stock trash enclosure where the NVMe has no contact with it other than air. I do have some 1mm thermal pads so that is round two to see if there is a simple temperature drop for the sake of a few cents extra. I also have a few NVMe heatsinks and a better enclosure coming for some additional testing next week.

Fairly logical as the data transfer rate increases so does the Temperature.

EDIT Added USB 3.2 Gen 1 port test from another PC.

NVMe drives and in particular as USB 4 when it gets released with some of the PCIe4 grade drives used. What and how in the hell will you be keeping them cool or will they even need to be?

[beanflying]

Ran into some stability issues and the USB 3.2 Gen 1 port was dropping my generic swill USB 3.1 Drive to USB 2 speeds and dropping out randomly 

Trawling the backblocks of the internerd and reading and trawling I found a zip file with what seemed to be an updated Realtek driver set and installer and the change log indicated the slow down was addressed several versions prior. So I will link it here but **** use it at your own risk.  Station Drivers Realtek update

Remove the NVMe FIRST !!! Take the opportunity to drop it into a PC and upgrade it's firmware too.
Plug in the board and run JEYI.exe
Push the Update button.

Reinstall the NVME into it and everything worked for me at least. The old firmware on mine was 1.29.x

I have since run some heavier tests of it and so far no drop outs and operating at a throttled USB 3.1 speeds on the 3.2 ports 

[DiTBho]

For me XHCI is very problematic 

[rdl]

Considering they're short term and only under heavy load, none of those temperatures seem all that bad to me.

[beanflying]

Sure 54C isn't terrible but we can do better 

This will vary depending on your NMVe drive and actual enclosure but there is just on 1mm of gap between the main memory handling and memory packages to the case. So a couple of tiny bits on them an a thin wipe of heatsink compound to help them slide on the enclosure but stay put on the IC's.

Really well worth it I think 10C drop from the noticed peak on a first run and on a second shortly after (started at 34C) still 9C under the non pad version. Hey China spend 0.02C and make it better by including some material in the kit.

More on this when I get the next enclosure and heatsinks to play with but even now I am happy I could hammer this one on a hot Summers day without any issues.

[DiTBho]

water cooling? 

[beanflying]

water cooling? 

Sure here is a link for you to go buy one  https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08TB29VRS?tag=linustechaust-22&keywords=Corsair%20MP600%20Pro%20Hydro%20X&geniuslink=true

There is some interesting testing videos on YouTube for internally mounted NVMe's and assorted heatsinks from simple to multipipe copper heatsinks to fans as well. PCIe4 is already showing signs of being an issue and PCIe5 even more so.

[rdl]

Well, I recently bought an HP Elitedesk and added an NVME M.2 drive. So far it stays down in the mid 30s, so I'm not worrying too much about it. Apparently, stock machines with the M.2 had an extra fan, but I'm not seeing any problem so far without it.

[beanflying]

Depending on which slot you dropped the NVMe into the Elitedesk is mainly PCIe 2 in the slots so unlikely you will ever have a heat issue.

I sort of wanted to keep this about external drives too. The video I put above was more about perhaps where external cooling will need to head with USB4 and even faster drives.

However I did just hammer my 1TB internal scratch drive with the same workout and with a simple heatsink it peaked at 45C at PCI3 speeds. So be alert not alarmed for internal ones until you hit PCIe 4 & 5.

[PlainName]

Just catching up...

What are you using to capture the drive stats?

[beanflying]

Just catching up...

What are you using to capture the drive stats?

First post now has links to the two bits of software. Other than that I am just putting them side by side and taking screenshots - KISS 

[PlainName]

Thanks. The CPUID monitor looks cool, but can't doesn't show temperature for my system drive (WDC WDS100T2). Not that surprised since this is Windows 7 with a i7700 CPU, and Microsoft in their wisdom think I shouldn't be mixing such esoteric hardware with their shit OS, so just getting an NvME working is a mess.

I use Hard Disk Sentinel which can get the temperature of this (but very little else): currently 26C. There's an idling Samsung 860 QVO which reads 17C in both apps. To be honest, I am not that concerned about the in-PC temperatures (the heatsinks I use are the last one that chappy tried in the video with the fans). It's the external ones which I use for backups/transfers/etc.

[beanflying]

Semi useless trivia and pricing as of 2023

10Gbps USB3.1 Gen2 max speed  $10-30 USD - reality of about 0.9Gps up and down on long writes.

20Gbps USB3.2 Gen1 2x2 max speed $40-60 USD - reality of toward 2Gps up and down and a bit better on higher end ports.

40Gbps USB4/Thunderbolt speeds $100-150+ USD - reality seems to be around 2.5-2.8Gps port dependant.

So the law of diminishing returns applies here in particular but for a lot of general use 10 or 20 Gbps seems 'sensible' for 95%+ of us.

[beanflying]

Well worth a watch. Gordon ranting on on USB/Thunderbolt 4 Drives when it really isnt 

[beanflying]

New bits arrived today so a little playing as the Weather outside is trash.

NVMe heatsink is actually heading for a MITX build because the MB came without one supplied and after a little testing I think ALL modern NVMe's should have at least a basic one.

Interesting the temperatures were about on par with the full enclosure with the heat pads so I guess if you brought one of them and a bare NMVe to USB board then you could 3D print an enclosure. Unless my search ability is off then this option will cost you more $ and time so skip it.

** Will add the other NVMe enclosure stuff here rather than another post later in the day RL calls only really expecting it to be as good as the first one with the pads for temps. Dumbass seller puts picture of M key and also puts it in the description and then posts me a B key chassis 

[beanflying]

Returned the B keyed POS and got a credit from the seller without any acknowledgment of the issue  Make sure you use Paypal and or evilbayplus etc to make it a no cost return.

Decided not to buy another 20Gbps enclosure at this stage as most of my boxes are limited to USB 3.1 Gen2 speeds anyway and frankly that is plenty for me and most I guess.

For fun today I dropped the enclosure onto a recently arrived powered 5m USB 3.0 extension for another application that cant be done on LAN or Wifi. Handled 5Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen1) disk read writes with no loss of speed over direct connection.  I suspect it will handle the full 10Gbps but I didn't try it.