I got a pc that suffers from severe heating problems because of its poorly designed passive cooling case. I tried several strategies to put temperature under control, did a lot of tests with thermald, but ended up hacking a fan into the case. However, I still have problems with ssd temperatures.

Right now, as I write this, the nvme ssd is at 67ºC and easily goes beyond 80 or 90 during data transfers. I already lost 2 ssds before realizing this was the problem, because I was controlling just the cpu temperature.

There's no physical way to force airflow where the ssd is, so I was wondering if there's some way to throttle data transfer of something to prevent the ssd temperatures from reaching a threshold. All I could find was a vibecoded github repository. I don't care if data transfer gets ridiculously slow, as long as the ssd remain safe, and I can't consider getting any new hardware right now.

I'm currently running fedora 44 on that machine

Edit: I thought there was an easier software mitigation to that, but apparently, solutions will tend to the hardware side, so here are the hardware details:

  • It's an unbranded chinese cheap mini pc with a heat dissipation case that doesn't dissipate well
  • The ssd is mounted on the back of the motherboard. The model is a sandisk M.2 1TB 2280
    Here's a photo of the case, for the reference (don't judge me lol):

image

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[–] [S] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 child)

I added the hardware details and a photo to the post.

Hmm transferring heat to the case isn't a bad idea. The case would get really hot before, but after adding that indecent fan, now it's cool

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  • [–] 1 point 17 hours ago

    I see the unit now, your easiest mod is probably a thick thermal pad to transfer heat to the chassis. It might work out well if you combine that with those graphene heatsink stickers. (SSD > graphene heatsink sticker > thermal pad > chassis)

    I have a feeling you might not have a good time with a standard SSD heatsink/dissipator. Those usually work best with at least a little bit of airflow. It might not be much different once the heatsink fully saturates. The heat needs to go somewhere

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