Solved WD Black SN770 runs MUCH cooler than Samsung 970 EVO Plus

Recently moved my disks in System 1 around to get my OS disk in a cooler spot (and, as you may have read here, to see whether I could get the OS back on Disk 0). That all worked, and the OS disk idle temp came down from 49-51° C to 42-45° C. But I've been surprised by the temps of my new WD Black. The WD is the one on the right (CrystalDiskInfo readings, confirmed by HWiNFO and CPU-Z). The difference between 30° and 49° C is HUGE. The leftmost and center readings are 970 EVO plus disks, 250 GB and 500 GB, respectively. All three have heat sinks attached with thermal pads.

I know that all my temps are well within the safe operating range, so I'm not at all concerned about the higher ones, but I was wondering whether WD Blacks have a reputation for runnng cooler than Samsung EVO Plusses. I've seen several suggestions to that effect on the Net, but those are not as reliable as a report from one of you on this forum would be.

I'm thinking that when the budget allows, I might replace the 2-3-year old Samsungs with WDs.

Interesting. The SN770 was benchmarked with faster sequential reads and writes then the Samsung.

Yes. I've long been a Samsung faithful, but the specs and performance-on-my-machine are leading me to consider switching over to the WD Black brand.

Hey Wisewiz, whether it applies to your situation or not, here's something I discovered about temps when diddling around with my drives on this stock OEM machine of mine which is pretty compatible to your system 1. For me, lower idle temps ended up not having diddly-squat to do with the drives themselves. (One was SKHynix, the other Solidigm, both with like heatsinks and thermal pads) I found it depended on which of the 2 nvme connectors a drive was connected to and its physical location on my mobo. One of the connectors is squeezed in beside my ram and near to my cpu. The other is toward the bottom of the board not near any of the other heat generating components and where air-flow was better.

Being a stock MT case, I was limited with what I could do with my cooling. I tried, going so far as to buy a complete Noctua setup of cooler and fans. It was a fantastic working solution, improving temps everywhere that far surpassed the performance of the Dell premium cooler and fans. It was my first experience with Noctua and I had no idea it could make such a difference. But this damn Dell proprietary board squawked about the fans and I found no solution for it..
In the south we southern engineer everything with bailing wire and duck tape so I ended up using the same principal. I used an old Dell fan as an intake fan using tie wraps tied to the front case that blows directly across the hot nvme connection. Now both drives run around 32-34 deg. idle. It ain't pretty, but it works.
Now, I'm stuck with really nice Noctua setup that I'll probably never use. I get mad every time I see them in my storage room because, damn, those fans work good.

glasskuter said:

... I found it depended on which of the 2 nvme connectors a drive was connected to and its physical location on my mobo. One of the connectors is squeezed in beside my ram and near to my cpu. The other is toward the bottom of the board not near any of the other heat generating components and where air-flow was better.

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Yeeeessss. My mobo connector for NVMes is in a corner of this small case, and a LOT of wiring crosses over it, about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch above the installed drive. Air circulation is always at a premium in the SFF cases, but it's clearly better above and away from the corners and the wiring bundles. So, ... my OS drive was in the corner, and the NVMe I had added by using a PCIe adapter card was in the clear and as far from heat sources as possible in the case. The drive on the adapter was running a good deal cooler than the OS drive on the board, so when I added a third NVMe on another adapter card that I used the graphics slot for, and I saw that both drives on cards were running much cooler than the board-mounted OS drive, the solution was clear, and it required neither duct tape nor baling wire! I switched the drives around, so that the OS was in the graphics slot (cooler) and the main storage drive was in the PCI Express slot, and the third, the apparently naturally cooler-running WD Black, was on the board. A little adjusting of the BIOS startup settings, and Voila!

Results in the OP above. Thanks for your observations and your ideas (especially about the tape and wire ), as always.

BTW, after some moderate use of the secondary drives and the usual everyday use of the OS drive, this picture emerges:

I am not up to speed with some of (all of?) the stuff you guys are talking about. But I look at the temps and ask; which drives are getting used the most and are they warmer as a result, because it is logical to me, that the temps are relevant to the drives operations.

Wisewiz said:

BTW, after some moderate use of the secondary drives and the usual everyday use of the OS drive, this picture emerges:

View attachment 84155

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Are those temps showing on the taskbar a part of CrystalDiskInfo? I’d like to try it.

@antspants

Yessir. Open the utility and click Function in the menu bar, then tick Keep Running in System Tray, and, if you wish (and I do wish), tick Startup. Then about thirty seconds after you get to the desktop after boot, you'll see the color-coded little boxes. Might have to use Taskbar Settings to make them stay in the tray instead of in the "hidden icons" display. I just dragged them down one by one, and they stayed. I haven't yet seen it (and hope I don't) but they're supposed to change color from pleasant blue to troubling yellow when you get to the warning threshold, and to terrifying red if you exceed that threshold.

BTW, Good Morning, antspants on the oppposite side of the globe. !

Wisewiz said:

BTW, Good Morning, antspants on the oppposite side of the globe. !

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Good ”evening” (for you) mate! I hope your winter is still being bearable. The news we have received is still favourable.

Thanks for that information, mush appreciated!

Remember… Canadian winter nights are dark and full of terrors.

Ah, but Australian winter nights are filled with very large snakes and rabid wallabees!

antspants said:

I hope your winter is still being bearable.

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It's feckin cold!!!



My car was dead as a doornail all day!!!

Wisewiz said:

Ah, but Australian winter nights are filled with very large snakes and rabid wallabees!

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Edwin said:

It's feckin cold!!!

View attachment 84165

My car was dead as a doornail all day!!!

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You need more monitors, LCD’s are warmer than LED’s. Plus LCD’s make you glow at night

Edwin said:

It's feckin cold!!!

View attachment 84165

My car was dead as a doornail all day!!!

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I know what you mean by feckin cold! Tomorrow its supposed to be -7C/-18C. That pretty cold for Alabama.



BTW, I have 5 desktop computers. I may have to start them up to keep warm.

I think my thread just turned into an extension of Last One to Post Wins.

Hi,
Yeah I've got a 970 evo + 500gb and they are a hot potato lol
I swapped it for a 980 pro 2tb that I got for a steal over the holidays.

ThrashZone said:

Hi,
Yeah I've got a 970 evo + 500gb and they are a hot potato lol
I swapped it for a 980 pro 2tb that I got for a steal over the holidays.

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But what about the WD SNxxx? You don't show me the comparative temps for that one.

Wisewiz said:

But what about the WD SNxxx? You don't show me the comparative temps for that one.

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Hi,
Yeah I did it the 57c max number on the uploaded image
No CDM score on it though it only shows the 970 evo plus temps and score

I'm recording a movie atm I can post the 980 and sn850x tomorrow
Think I have another 970 evo + to after a flipped the heatsink and it maxed at 60c

I do have temps of my sn850x 4tb in my laptop