Arctic Unveils the M2 Pro SSD Cooler

[btarunr]

Small, fast, hot—M.2 SSDs. The compact power packs require additional cooling to ensure consistently high performance. ARCTIC offers the right solution with the M2 Pro. M.2 SSDs are true speed miracles. However, they tend to reach high temperatures quickly during intensive use and reduce performance early to avoid overheating. The M2 Pro was specifically designed for 2280 M.2 SSDs. Thanks to its additional mass, it not only keeps the temperature under control, but also ensures that the SSD can cool down more quickly. This enables reliable performance and a long service life. The cooler is extremely compact at 73 x 24.2 x 10.5 mm and comes with two precisely fitting ARCTIC TP-3 Premium Performance thermal pads.



Also ideal for the PlayStation 5
If you want to give your PlayStation 5 a memory upgrade, Sony definitely recommends getting a suitable cooler. With the M2 Pro from ARCTIC, gamers are ideally equipped for SSD expansion of their PS5 or PS5 Slim.

Features

• For single-sided and double-sided 2280 M.2 SSDs
• Protects against overheating and loss of performance
• Easy construction
• TP-3 thermal pads included
• Compatible with Liquid Freezer III

Availability
The new M2 Pro—available in Black and Silver—is now available on ARCTIC webshop, on eBay and Amazon, starting at a price of $ 5.49 (MSRP $ 9.99).

For more information, visit the product page.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[TheDeeGee]

Looks like that's near impossible to remove once attached.

Not to mention it's just a block of aluminium with no fins to radiate heat.

 

[Chomiq]

I mean if these numbers are true:

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Looks like that's near impossible to remove once attached.

Not to mention it's just a block of aluminium with no fins to radiate heat.

I was thinking exactly this. It will be great at soaking up some bursty data transfers. but once its become saturated its pretty much done. Not going to be as effective getting rid of the heat as a heatsink with fins on to increase surface area.

Although as a low profile heatsink for laptops and SFF machines. This might make all the difference if it fits.




This statement here does confuse me though...

• Compatible with Liquid Freezer III

How does the SSD tie in to the AIO? Does the LF III have an additional addon that attaches to the SSD heatsink?

 

[bonehead123]

Without fins or fans, perhaps they should rename it to "SSD Heatsink" as it really doesn't qualify as a "cooler" per se, IMO

 

[chrcoluk]

With a M.2 in my PS5 now, its interesting how slow the built in NVME is on the PS5.

I can copy a 30 gig game from internal to M.2 in about 7 seconds, but the other way its about 40 seconds. I wonder if its to manage temps on the internal chips.

 

[Nater]

I imagine we'd all be better off to just get some cheap aluminum or copper heatsinks off of amazon/ebay. There's a 4 pack of the little square ones for $10.

 

[rusTORK]

How does the SSD tie in to the AIO?

Nah, they just want it to sell to owners of this AiO. If you have X then buy Y. Mostly AiO will work with MOST SSD heatsink in top M.2 slot.

I got plans on one tall JEYI SSD Heatsink for my SSD, but after i carefully measured everything - i can't install it. One heatpipe of Noctua NH-D15 with NM-AMB12 will touch heatsink. I can tecnically grind off in this area, but maybe it's better to just get another product...

 

[ARF]

Looks like that's near impossible to remove once attached.

So, these TP-3 thermal pads act like glue?

Not to mention it's just a block of aluminium with no fins to radiate heat.

Perhaps it is targeted at cheap builds, low TDP PCIe 4.0 / 3.0 drives, where the motherboards have no included SSD guards.

 

[Chrispy_]

SSD coolers are mostly a joke. At least half of them are exercises in how to add as much bulk and as little surface area as possible, which is the diametric opposite of what a heatsink should be.

This is a $0.33 heatsink on AliExpress:

If your stylish garbage has less surface area that this, it's a worthless piece of shit.

 

[Fungi]

So, these TP-3 thermal pads act like glue?

"The ARCTIC TP-3 is electrically insulating, non-adhesive, and easy to handle."

ARCTIC | Cooling, Mounts, Equipment | The Cooler Way | Cooler than ever

ARCTIC is a leading manufacturer of low-noise PC coolers, fans and thermal interfaces along with high-quality monitor arms and wall brackets | Fast processing and delivery | ARCTIC Store

www.arctic.de

Looks like they're kind of like putty.

 

[raptori]

It is scary to see a company specialist in cooling release a slab of aluminum and call it SSD cooler, what happened to proper heatsink with fins, the same goes for motherboards makers ?

 

[Heiro78]

So, these TP-3 thermal pads act like glue?

TheDeeGee was probably talking about how the top aluminum snaps into the bottom aluminum. For removal you would need a decent amount of prying or to slide the top aluminum piece out of the bottom which would be difficult since the thermal pads are a bit sticky and high in friction on most SSD coolers/ heatsinks.

I mean if these numbers are true:

These results are really great and not just for as a passive heatsink. Look at the results of the Thermalright HR-10 Pro that is a big heatsink plus a small 30mm fan which are comparable to this one

Beyond Overkill Cooling – Jiushark M.2-THREE SSD Heatsink Review

This is the strongest NVMe heatsink on the market, bar none. Even with it’s fan removed, Jiushark’s M.2-THREE dominates my cooling benchmarks.

www.boringtextreviews.com

SSD coolers are mostly a joke. At least half of them are exercises in how to add as much bulk and as little surface area as possible, which is the diametric opposite of what a heatsink should be.

This is a $0.33 heatsink on AliExpress:

View attachment 352806



If your stylish garbage has less surface area that this, it's a worthless piece of shit.

I see your fins and raise you... more fins!

Are we ridiculous enough now?

 

[mechtech]

TheDeeGee was probably talking about how the top aluminum snaps into the bottom aluminum. For removal you would need a decent amount of prying or to slide the top aluminum piece out of the bottom which would be difficult since the thermal pads are a bit sticky and high in friction on most SSD coolers/ heatsinks.

View attachment 352817



These results are really great and not just for as a passive heatsink. Look at the results of the Thermalright HR-10 Pro that is a big heatsink plus a small 30mm fan which are comparable to this one

Beyond Overkill Cooling – Jiushark M.2-THREE SSD Heatsink Review

This is the strongest NVMe heatsink on the market, bar none. Even with it’s fan removed, Jiushark’s M.2-THREE dominates my cooling benchmarks.

www.boringtextreviews.com

I see your fins and raise you... more fins!
View attachment 352819

Are we ridiculous enough now?

Nah, when there is liquid coolers then it will be.

 

[Caring1]

With a M.2 in my PS5 now, its interesting how slow the built in NVME is on the PS5.

I can copy a 30 gig game from internal to M.2 in about 7 seconds, but the other way its about 40 seconds. I wonder if its to manage temps on the internal chips.

Every NVMe I have seen says to use a heatsink on them in Playstations.
And reading is always faster than writing.

 

[trsttte]

I see your fins and raise you... more fins!
View attachment 352819

Are we ridiculous enough now?

NAND benefits from running a bit hot (not too hot mind you) so that would be in the too much cooling column. Problem is the controller should run as cool as possible like any cpu so how do you balance that?

With slabs of metal like this one from Artic that just add a bit of thermal inertia to the drive that's how

It's a bit embarrassing for Artic to not have added some fins but it won't perform particularly different than most other ssd "coolers" on the market. If for some reason your ssd needs more cooling you made a bad purchasing decision with that ssd, if you're doing intensive reads and writes that make this not enough you're playing in a different market segment

 

[Minus Infinity]

SSD coolers are mostly a joke. At least half of them are exercises in how to add as much bulk and as little surface area as possible, which is the diametric opposite of what a heatsink should be.

This is a $0.33 heatsink on AliExpress:

View attachment 352806



If your stylish garbage has less surface area that this, it's a worthless piece of shit.

Put a little fan blowing across those fins and it should do a good job.

Do we have a test where we can see how just adding a fan works vs just heatsink vs heatsink and fan?

 

[thestryker6]

I have no doubt this is better than a bare drive, but it reminds me a lot of the basic Thermalright ones I got. They're not really going to do a whole lot with regards to long duration sustained loads but will keep temps largely under control otherwise. For M.2 SSD cooling if you're serious about it even a single heatpipe ought to be enough though airflow alone can help immensely.

 

[JWNoctis]

SSD coolers are mostly a joke. At least half of them are exercises in how to add as much bulk and as little surface area as possible, which is the diametric opposite of what a heatsink should be.

This is a $0.33 heatsink on AliExpress:

View attachment 352806



If your stylish garbage has less surface area that this, it's a worthless piece of shit.

First guess is nobody want to return to the anodized-and-dyed-NB-fins aesthetics of 90's and 00's, and that heat conduction and capacity, rather than raw dissipation, is a greater concern for typical end user usage patterns on a fast M.2 SSD. The cheap TR ones are probably the closest to this aesthetic, and to be fair, many motherboard's built-in M.2 shields have no fins, either.

Put a little fan blowing across those fins and it should do a good job.

Do we have a test where we can see how just adding a fan works vs just heatsink vs heatsink and fan?

I've seen benchmarks of drives that both come with and without heatsinks, tested both with and without fan blowing at it.

 

[Heiro78]

Nah, when there is liquid coolers then it will be.

I remember team force as an AIO with a separate pair of lines to liquid cool an SSD. I found it.

TEAMGROUP SIREN DUO360 AIO Review - SSD Cooling Included

TEAMGROUP merges solid performance with innovative features in the Siren DUO360. This 360 mm prefilled AIO not only cools your CPU, it also includes a block for an M.2 NVMe SSD. Cooling performance is good, and the all-white design will certainly catch some attention.

www.techpowerup.com

Put a little fan blowing across those fins and it should do a good job.

Do we have a test where we can see how just adding a fan works vs just heatsink vs heatsink and fan?

TPU kind of did that with this team group one. The thermal analysis page shows the heatsink working with and without the fan. Pretty much shows that the fan helps keep the cooler temp while without it, the temp increases almost as if no heatsink was there. Which is still a bit weird. Or maybe it happens because of the heatsink design.

edit: forgot to add the link

Team Group Z540 2 TB Review

Team Group's Z540 PCI-Express Gen 5 SSD achieves incredible speeds, reaching up to 12 GB/s. Thanks to its well-designed cooling system, heat is effectively dissipated. Unlike competing Gen 5 SSDs that run their coolers at constant maximum speed, the Z540 lets you adjust fan speed through your...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[chrcoluk]

Every NVMe I have seen says to use a heatsink on them in Playstations.
And reading is always faster than writing.

Yeah but internal is especially slow for a NVME, it seems to be by watching the numbers, a little bit faster than SATA write speed's.

Not a huge deal though as the priority is fast reads on a game console. Was just an observation and still much faster than copying to USB HDD.

The M.2 is a SN850X with a built in heat sink.

 

[Palindrome]

From the pictures it looks like only one side will be making contact with the heatsink. I bought some generic heatsinks for my 970 Evos recently, they definitely do bring temperatures down. Both are close to the GPU, so I'd sometimes see temps as high as mid 70s on the drives, with the heatsinks on it's a good 15°C lower at worst, usually they're in the low to mid 40s. I don't do much bursty, storage heavy stuff, but still, lower temps are nice.

Unfortunately this Arctic design looks like more form over function

 

[PLAfiller]

It looks deceptively simple, but Silverstone's TP02-M2 also looks like a "slab of aluminum with fins", but it received a very warm welcome on the reviews. It did pretty well despite being passive.


EDIT: what @TheDeeGee said is spot on, I have an aliexpress one that has a similar mounting process and once the pads sink in the capacitors of the NVME, you are not getting this thing out.

 

[ndtoan]

NAND flash just operates normally between 40-70 degree Celcius, out of this degree NAND flash can lose data quickly.

The SSD heatsink's mission cooled down the controller and keep the controller's temperature between 40-70 degree Celcius.

If your SSD controller doesn't write over 70 degree Celcius, don't buy SSD heatsink.

You can google "SSD heatsink can kill your SSD" and see the result.