Alienware 15 r2 : M.2 SSD Cooling options?

UPDATE:

I have found cooling options for SSD's at a website called www.moddiy.com. I ordered one of each plus some Arctic MX-4, I'll definitely update and let you know if these heatsinks fit (I think they will...just) and if they alleviate the thermal issues I experienced when benchmarking my Liteon CX2..

UPDATE:

I have installed a heatsink on my Samsung 950 PRO. I used the included pad instead of MX-4 because there are a variety of chips on the drive that I'm not sure need cooling or not (if anyone knows which chips get hot and cause it to throttle let me know), so to start I'm trying it out this way. After everything has had a chance to set as this thermal interface stuff needs curing time, I'll check the temps again and then perhaps try MX-4 or Thermal Grizzly paste instead of the pad.

So why did I do this?

Using CrystalDiskInfo I discovered that just running CrystalDiskMark seq read/write 2 times caused the drive to go thermal before the second test finished. When it goes thermal it basically runs at SATA 3 speeds, or about 5x slower.

Now with the heatsink in place I can run the test 4 times in a row before it throttles. I was also suprised to find that just using the computer normally had the drive pushing over 60C before, now using the computer normally has the drive running at ~40C. So that's a pretty nice improvement. Despite these improvements, it's still thermally limited to an extent and I have a feeling I'm going to have to switch from the thermal pad to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut to really free the drive from the thermal limitations.

The only downfall is that to fit the drive you must modify the back cover of the 15 R2 by removing a plastic tab. One could theoretically put the drive in the other slot, but it will only push a max of 1600 MBs due to that PCIe slot only being 2x. The other slot is 4x and allows full NVMe speeds.

You don't need a heatsink on the SAMSUNG 950 PRO if you use it in the right slot as it's basically running throttled due to the 2x limitation.

I attached a picture if you want to see the heatsink, it uses four silicone rubber bands to fasten it down.

Thanks for posting. A good reminder that even M.2 SSDs need proper cooling. Interesting that it's "as designed" Passive/Radiant cooling is not enough, but in certain laptops is might be worse than others or if it was installed in a desktop with plenty of room and air-circulation.

Due to the closed nature of the Alienware 15 R2's SSD access area a heatsink with thermal paste may perform worse under high load. I think the thick thermal pad absorbs a lot of heat, and this gives a bit more time to run benchmarks and such. While using a quality paste like MX-4 will pass the heat directly to the heatsink which can't radiate in the small area of the back panel. The solution? Drill holes in the removable back panel directly over the SSD...  Once the holes are there the heat sink can radiate and I get normal use temps around 34C vs 39C for thermal pads. Additionally it's possible to run the same number of tests before throttling (4) as the thermal pads. And lastly the drive cools off much faster after being pushed hard.

UPDATE:

After further testing I think that thermal paste is inferior to a thermal pad in the case of an SSD. The issue with thermal paste is that the paste itself has no sinking capability, the thermal pad does, and this helps alleviate issues with the lack of airflow in this part of the 15 R2. Thermal paste is entirely dependent on the heat sink's ability to radiate heat whether through airflow or liquid. It's also not possible to make good contact with all the chips when using paste, this could be an even bigger issue depending on what chips do what on the SSD board. If all the big chips are V-NAND and its one of the smaller ones that is the controller, that could be a limiting factor for paste.

Conclusion, use a 1.5-2mm thick thermal pad if you want to heat sink your SSD.