With temps up on modern SSDs, the need to keep modern Gen 5 SSDs cool has resulted in a market for m.2 heat sinks and there's a wide variety of choices to consider. Heat sinks of sizes large and small, in a variety of form factors and even with active cooling, are now available to keep your SSD cool.
Today's review will be of Jiushark's M.2-Two, a heatsink with active cooling but a moderate profile which means it is compatible with most air coolers - unlike many of its larger competitors. Many of y'all may be unfamiliar with Jiushark - they're somewhat new to the cooling market, but they've released a variety of innovative cooling solutions. I've previously reviewed their M.2-Three SSD cooler, which packs an insanely tall heatsink and a large active fan, and next month I'll have a review on Wccftech of their unique JF13K Diamond Mini CPU Cooler. zipper fin heat sink
When NVMe heat sinks first hit the market, many of the units included with certain motherboards were gimmicks and actually resulted in higher SSD temperatures. Cooling m.2 drives wasn't really a concern back then, but today's PCI-e Gen 5 SSDs aren't able to sustain their peak performance without some form of cooling. The controller found in most PCI-e 5 SSDs currently on the market is Phison's E26, which has a TJ Max (maximum temperature) of 125C - much hotter than previous generation products.
Does Jiushark's M.2-Two standout enough from the competition to make it worthy of your hard earned money? We'll see in the benchmarks shortly, but first we'll take a quick look at the unit's features and design.
As you can see from the product photo shown above and below, Jiushark's M.2-Two has a low profile and as such it has broad compatibility even with systems using air coolers.
The heatsink of the M.2-Three has 8 widely spaced thick fins, designed to facilitate maximum amounts of airflow
The M.2-Two includes a small active fan for superior heat dissipation. The included cover creates a sealed pathway which eliminates air leakage and results in strong static pressure.
The M.2-Two arrives in a small box that's about the same size as my cell phone, Google's Pixel 6a.
Included in the box are thermal pads and the heatsink with attached active fan. However, this heatsink does not include a screwdriver like many of its competitors do. To start installation you'll need to use a screwdriver to remove the screws from the sides of the unit.
Set the first thermal pad at the bottom of the unit, and place the NVMe m.2 SSD inside.
Afterwards, use the 2nd thermal pad on top of the SSD, and then secure the heatsink to the base with the included screws.
The last step is to connect the SSD to the m.2 slot, and secure it with a screw.
In my previous review of Thermalright's HR-10 Pro, some readers expressed concerns that SSD heatsinks might cause compatibility issues. That's certainly not a problem for Jiushark's M.2-Two, it isn't very tall and should have broad compatibility with air coolers.
To test the performance of the heatsink's cooling ability, I’ve run a custom IOMeter script which takes 30 minutes to complete testing. This script is designed to cause the drive, and especially it’s controller, to create as much heat as possible. You might consider it a “Furmark” of SSD testing, it’s a power virus designed for the purpose of testing NVMe cooling.
The purpose of this review is to see how well the heatsink dissipates heat. The reason I've chosen an extreme workload to test this is to make these heatsink reviews "futureproof" to some extent. PCI-e 6.0 and beyond will increase the power budgets available for m.2 devices, generating even more heat than current PCI-e 5 drives do.
While the test results below use a PCI-e 4 system, I've run the same tests on a PCI-e 5 system with the same TeamGroup Z540 SSD and a few of the same heatsinks and in general temperatures scale similarly - but can run up to 5-6 degrees Celsius hotter on a PCI-e 5 platform. This is why any result here reaching 77C is considered failing - because these heatsinks throttle while stress testing on a PCI-e 5 platform.
I need again remind readers that this benchmark is designed to test the ability of the NVMe heatsink's ability to cool - this is not a loading or performance test. For common users loading games and applications, any basic heatsink will offer cooling strong enough to run unthrottled. Only professionals with storage heavy workloads or servers will have need of stronger cooling performance. Only the worst of heatsinks truly fail my testing, and these results are shown below.
The availability of Juishark's M.2-Two is currently limited, but as of this writing it's currently available on AliExpress for 1,951円 (yen) - which is approximately $14 USD. At this price, it offers a good value compared to other high end NVMe heatsinks and coolers.
Jiushark's M.2-Two offers strong cooling performance with active cooling, and it's low profile ensures that has broad compatibility with most air coolers - which can't be said of many taller NVMe heatsinks available on the market. This cooler isn't widely availability yet, but Juishark has indicated it should be available in European and North American markets in the future. It is currently available on Ali Express for $14 USD, and at that price it provides strong value for the amount of cooling it provides.
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