I’m using three 800G Micron 7450 Max M.2, in a mirror, for the system dataset and app storage. They are rated for 7w when in use and 3w when idle. They are always sitting between 55c and 60c, that seems way to hot for me. They are by far the hotest components in my build, the CPU rarely goes over 40c.
Are they hot because they are enterprise drives with power loss protection etc… OR are they hot because they are always being written to by the system dataset so they never get a chance to idle?
All three drives are permanently being written at about 200 to 300 KB/s which seems about right considering what they are being used for. I’d really like to get the temp down and don’t mind replacing them with different M.2 drives but I’m not convinced that will help. Even DRAM-less consumer M.2 will use that much power if they never get a chance to idle.
They each have a thin 1mm copper heatsink. The case is small but it’s full of well positioned fans. The three drives are in different locations around the case, two on a riser card and one attached to the mobo. I might believe one of them has an airflow issue but not all three.
I know I’m within the operating temp but it’s getting a little close for my liking. This is the permanent idle temp aswell, I’m not working those drives very hard yet.
With the migration from Core to Scale, one thing i have realised Is that my 2 NVME stick in this state PS-4 0.0050W (from the previous PS-0 8.4800W), despite they are costantly in use for apps/docker. I get This info from Joe s multi alert script (don’t know how get from cli).
This Is reflected nor on temp and consume.
Did you try just to move the system dataset on boot pool, for check if temp goes down?
You have a cooling problem, it is that simple. 7 watts is nothing, there are some out there that suck 15 watts (the maximum per spec).
If you have the time, I highly recommend that you post some photos of the inside of the case focusing on the case fans and the M.2 NVMe drives. More cooling issues are actually easy to fix. While I can’t tell you how to without some photos, it should be easy.
Also, provide a list of the hardware you are using, case, motherboard, cpu, add-on cards, all of it. the hardware configuration can make all the difference in the world.
Thanks for all the comments. I will look at the cooling and put bigger heatsinks on two of the drives. The third is a little space restricted, will have to make something I think. This is quite a “customised” build. Full spec is;
Case - Jonsbo N3
PSU - HDPlex 500w GaN ATX
Board - ASRockRack AM5D4ID-2T/BCM (Deep Mini-ITX)
Memory - 2 x Kingston 48GB 5600MT/s DDR5 ECC
CPU - AMD 7600 (6 cores)
HBA - Broadcom 9500 16i
Data - 8 x Kingston DC600M 7.69TB in RaidZ2
Apps - 3 x Micron 7450 800GB NVMe in a Mirror
Boot - 2 x Kingston DC600M 480GB in a Mirror
Cooling - 5 x Noctua case fans & Noctua NH-U9S CPU cooler
I was thinking of doing a more detailed post about this build with pics as it might be interesting to others. Is that normally done on this forum or should I head over to Redit for that?
You can see two of the copper heat sinks in this pic, including the space restricted one. The third M.2 drive is on the opposite side of the riser.
I can see why they are hot. The locations are terrible for airflow, and the pieces of copper are called “heat spreaders” and are terrible heatsinks, very little surface area.
Let’s talk a little bit here, I will list the problems I can see with this one photograph:
The M.2 drive to the right of the photo, what is it plugged into? Looks like you wedged it into place right up against a voltage regulator heatsink.
The CPU is barely breathing and if the fan is pushing air into the CPU heatsink then you are pushing hot air against the PCIe card and heating up that area as well.
You said you had a third M.2 drive? Not in the photo.
Question time:
Do you have any hard drives? if not, what is in the lower section of the computer case?
My current advice:
Replace the “heat spreaders” with true heatsinks. When you search the internet for M.2 Heatsink, you will see they have fins, it is not a flat piece of metal.
Relocate the two M.2 drives that are not part of the motherboard to the drive bay area, and try to mount them nicely, I’m thinking just behind the hard drive board where they can see some airflow. Think about it before you do anything. There are a lot of ways you can mount something, and if you want it to look professional, I’d need to see some photos. If there is space, you could use a small piece of metal as a mounting bracket, but if you do a professional job you would need to drill holes and, well you just need to do it right. Hey, a 3D printer could do a lot as well without drilling.
i have had those kind of “heat spreaders” on the NVME sitted in my itx workstation. He do literally nothing, throwed away after 1 week.
Replaced with this:
from 50° to 40° (can’t add fan or else, no space…)
On the nas (with good airflow and space) i use those really simply and cheap heatsink
Those are meant to be in a server-style air flow or alternatively, have a fan attached to them. Unfortunately they do not have a temp sensor, so until something goes wrong, you won’t notice.
Edit: Where did you put the fifth case fan? Two up, two below as shown on the manual?
Maybe it is possible to add one to the front panel on the side of the PSU to blow some air past the HBA. Or is the space beside it still unused, than one could add something like this?
For airflow, I need to rotate the CPU cooler and fit bigger, proper heat sinks to the m.2 drives. Might not be as big as that monster @oxyde. I’ve got an idea for the one that has limited space.
Also, I have a temp probe from the motherboard attached to the heatsink on the Broadcom HBA. It’s reporting low 30s even when I’m transferring files around. Feels cool to the touch as well. Everything seems to be running nice and cool apart from the m.2 drives.
