Do SSDs Need Cooling? – DIY in 5 Ep 262

Опубликовано 16 ноября 2025, 14:00

Is there a trade-off for the high speed and durability of SSDs? There’s not an easy answer. Heat can affect your SSD’s performance, but controlling it is possible with some simple tips.
NVMe SSDs typically operate safely up to 70°C (158°F). Most use thermal throttling, a protective process to slow down data transfer speeds if the drive’s temperature exceeds that threshold, protecting it and surrounding components from heat damage. However, this impacts system performance—at least until the drive cools down, then it’s back to normal speed.
SATA SSDs are lower in temperature but also speed. They don’t need the same kind of temperature controls that SSDs do.

Monitor temperatures
Most drives have built-in SMART temperature sensors which can be monitored with vendor software or system monitoring tools, such as the Kingston SSD Manager (kingston.com/en/support/techni...
It’s most important to monitor drives when they’re under load. You can test this by running a workload that reflects your usage, whether copying a large file, rendering a project, or playing a game. Monitor the temperature for 10-15 minutes. You should see a plateau and not a steady climb to the throttling threshold. Yoyo-ing dips in performance in the same temperature is a sign of an SSD at its thermal limit.

Controlling temperature
Poor airflow is the chief enemy of thermal regulation, its symptoms: grinding fans, random freezes, or crashes. Improving the airflow can keep your SSD cool and low the system’s ambient temperature.
- System placement is key: put your machine on a hard surface with ample clearance round its vents.
- Positive pressure (more intake than exhaust) helps keep dust out but maintains cooler air around your SSD.
- Mesh-fronted cases with unobstructed intake paths typically do better than closed designs—but regularly clean filters and vents to prevent dust buildup from blocking airflow.
- Air cooling is simple, effective, and low-maintenance, but you may find liquid cooling more efficient for heavy or complex systems, as well as quieter.
- Proper cable management helps prevent airflow blockage. Route your front panel and PSU cables behind the motherboard tray, and keep the area in front of the board’s M.2 slots clear to reduce heat build-up. Ideally, you’ll place your M.2 drive where it gets great airflow from the CPU, and place your GPU so that it doesn’t make thermal issues worse.
- Passive cooling such as heatsinks and thermal pads can be great aids. Many modern motherboard have M.2 heatsinks which can do a good job when installed correctly. Thermal pads also help when full, even contact is made.
- Dust acts as an insulator, which is why keeping your system clean is essential. Our video on PC cleaning will be helpful: youtube.com/watch?v=9oCAfd2GoU
- While all of these will help, remember: your computer won’t melt or catch fire if you lack cooling or heatsinks, it’ll just experience thermal throttling.

Thermal throttling’s purpose is to keep system components from reaching a hazardous state—the flipside is that it dampens performance. Hopefully this video has given you ideas on how to keep your system cool so that thermal throttling is unnecessary. Share any tips you have that we weren’t able to cover in the comments!

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0:00 Intro
1:00 Monitor temperatures
1:34 Controlling temperature
3:10 Outro