Wednesday, September 13th 2023
SSDs With Phison E26 Controllers Shut Down at Higher Temperatures
The advent of PCIe 5.0 SSDs with Phison's E26 controllers has been a double-edged sword. While these SSDs offer impressively high data throughputs, they come with a significant drawback: severe overheating issues that can cause the SSDs not only to throttle down but to shut off entirely. TechPowerUp first noted this issue back in May, in our Corsair MP700 review, where the uncooled drive shut down after 86 seconds of reads and after 55 seconds of writes. Regarding criticism from tech reviewers, Corsair has released a firmware update (version 22.1) for its MP700 SSD to ensure that it throttles down rather than shutting off when overheated. Yet, many other SSDs like the Crucial T700, Seagate FireCuda 540, Gigabyte Aorus Gen 5 10000, and ADATA Legend 970 still suffer from temperature issues.
However, it's crucial to note that these extreme overheating problems occur only when the SSDs run without any cooling. While some manufacturers have planned firmware updates to address the issue, Corsair is the only company that has taken tangible action so far. Crucial has released a new firmware (PACR5102), but the ComputerBase report indicates that the SSD continues to shut off at high temperatures. The problem, though, can generally be mitigated with proper cooling. Whether using the included cooler or placing the SSD under a motherboard cover, temperatures usually stay below the critical limit, thus avoiding a complete shutdown. When we tested the SSTC Tiger Shark Elite 2 TB with Phison E26 (with updated firmware) without adequate cooling, the SSD continued to operate and throttled down, indicating that the remaining SSDs using this controller need a proper firmware update that throttles the SSD instead of shutting it down.
Sources:
via HardwareLuxx, ComputerBase
However, it's crucial to note that these extreme overheating problems occur only when the SSDs run without any cooling. While some manufacturers have planned firmware updates to address the issue, Corsair is the only company that has taken tangible action so far. Crucial has released a new firmware (PACR5102), but the ComputerBase report indicates that the SSD continues to shut off at high temperatures. The problem, though, can generally be mitigated with proper cooling. Whether using the included cooler or placing the SSD under a motherboard cover, temperatures usually stay below the critical limit, thus avoiding a complete shutdown. When we tested the SSTC Tiger Shark Elite 2 TB with Phison E26 (with updated firmware) without adequate cooling, the SSD continued to operate and throttled down, indicating that the remaining SSDs using this controller need a proper firmware update that throttles the SSD instead of shutting it down.
47 Comments on SSDs With Phison E26 Controllers Shut Down at Higher Temperatures
more space on the Motherboard, larger capacity drives, larger PCBs in a metal enclosure that acts as a heatsink in the back of your case and not frying under your GPU.
I was one of the first adopters of the Corsair MP700. I noticed it was very hot. I bought this cooling solution which works very well and doesn't have a loud fan.
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Also noticing NVME 2.0 mentioned in TPU's latest review and that we now seeing U.2 HDD's.
I read up on NVME 2.0.
nvmexpress.org/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-nvme-2-0-specifications-and-new-technical-proposals/
So HDDs will migrate to NVME, we get the missing management stuff added back and zone control.
But bit hard to add a HDD to a M.2 slot lol. Hopefully we end up with U.2 sooner or later on desktop.
Gen 5 SSDs can then be cooled next to intake fans in a cooler part of the case, the way my HDDs and SATA SSDs are now.
Wait for gen 2 controllers that are built on more efficient nodes.
What we see here? A botched product. At least they could market it properly for special use cases not the epeen Netburst sequel popcorn numbers.
When the first reports of drives shutting down came out, I read somewhere that the companies don't need to do anything - benchmarking isn't considered normal operation, and in real life use you practically never use full speed of drive for a very long time - when reading or writing from a memory you quickly run out of that space, which is at best 32 or 64 GB - you can calculate how long it takes that at 10+ GB/s reads and writes. And there are practically no consumers that use two PCIe 5.0 drives on motherboards, capable of full PCIe 5.0 speeds on both M. 2 slots.
www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/torrent/torrent-compact/black-solid/
Also had one of these for about a year, it takes at least two 2.5" as standard, at least four if you use the 2.5" drive bays and can go up to eight in total without stacking drives in the 3.5" drive bays, although that means buying optional drive holders, but at least they're cheap-ish at $14 for two drives.
www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/focus/focus-2/black-solid/
That said, I have exactly zero drives in the drive bays.
www.froresystems.com/media-room/frore-systems-and-phison-demo-pcie-gen5-ssd-at-full-performance-with-no-throttlingThe first generation of their PCIe 4.0 controllers (E16) had the same issue so...U.2 drives are a bit too heavy for that.
3 slot GPU cooler sized PCI-E card for Gen5 NVME's.
As mentioned, it would have been better to go with U.2 and successors.
So far I see no point to invest into gen5, so the next one will still be "only" gen4 with the low low speed of 7400 MB/sThat tiny fan cannot be efficient and silent
Here is my solution3 slot is overkill and you know it, even 4 SSDs will not produce more heat than 40~45W of heat.
Here a valid solution
1kg pure copper and a 5cm double ball bearing fan is a great solution to keep cool your m.2 drives
I know it's "only" gen4, but there is a gen5 version: