Can M.2 pci/nvme drives handle sample library thermal load?

[Joe Garfield]

I just got notice my PC is shipping and need to order my drives. It's a mini PC with (2) M.2/PCIE 3.0x4 slots and (1) 2.5" SATA.

I've read that M.2 pcie drives warm up with large file transfers and rely on data throttling to keep from overheating. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Does having the samples on pcie SSD reduce load time, or is it just the software location that matters?

So far I've got EWQL Pianos and will be playing from 80GB worth of samples (240GB spread over 4 pianos, playing 1 at a time). I know SATA can stream the data fast enough but I want fastest possible load times - at startup and when switching between pianos.

The good news is they relocated the M.2 slots next to a vented cover.
Thanks for the help! I'm new here (and to PC audio) and this seems like a great forum.

[UltraJv]

Thats a very tight space. I had thermal trouble with a small PC and graphics card. I dont think anyone on here would commit to exact info as only the manufacturer would know.

[Joe Garfield]

One thing I was thinking: the thermal issues with these drives tends to happen with a lot of data transfer. The 'wisdom' is that they're great unless you plan on regularly transferring lots of large files. I figured that's what basically what streaming is..

Then I thought that SATA drives are capable of streaming the data for music, and those drives are rated at 1/4 of the transfer rate of a pcie drive. The online charts that show pcie throttling show roughly 2000mbps constant until the drive warms up, then they throttle back to ~1000mbps (very rough numbers, just for scale). If I only ask the drive to transfer 500mbps while I'm playing, that's below the throttled rate and therefore it should stay under the throttle temperature.

It's a good point that this is all machine-specific. Older motherboards had the pcie drives sandwiched between pci slots, next to/under graphics cards, etc. The previous version of my PC (m700) had the pcie drive tightly squeezed between the motherboard and 2.5" SATA drive. My PC has the drives next to 2 different vents. I'll probably use some heat sinks just to be safe.

[jdnz]

I doubt you need to even bother with the heatsinks - thermal throttling on m2 is only likely an issue in laptops (zero space and no airflow around the drive)

[raintalk]

There's no problems with the drives themselves.
Lenovo uses top of the line m.2 drives.
The computer cooling is designed to pull air over the drivers and memory and keep things cool
Monitor the drive temps yourself and see.
I'll be surprised if you have any problems.
Max out on RAM. Most all samplers these days load everything into RAM.

[Joe Garfield]

Thanks - that's encouraging to hear I didn't get the PC with drives, I figured I'd buy my own. So far I ordered a Samsung 960 Evo for the OS drive, and figure I'll probably get the same for the sample drive(s). Maybe I'll look at Lenovo's drives but they seemed expensive, I figured it was just a retail markup of some other brand's drive...

[raintalk]

On their workstations they're were loading Samsung SM961 and PM961 which are OEM drives that fall somewhere between a EVO and PRO
It's all just fancy benchmarks where the pro edges things out. The EVO is a great drive!

Buying retail drives is smart. You'll get the 5 year, x amount of TB, warranty which is much better than whatever service agreement you buy with the PC. You'll never use the warranty, they are solid drives.

The separate sample drive thing is mainly a hangover from the spinner drive days. e.g. Trying to write to one part of the drive while reading from another. With the NVMe and SSD in general it's not a problem anymore for DAWs

[jdnz]

The separate sample drive thing is mainly a hangover from the spinner drive days. e.g. Trying to write to one part of the drive while reading from another. With the NVMe and SSD in general it's not a problem anymore for DAWs

writes on SSD are still slow compared to reads (though we're talking the difference between 3500mb/s read and 2100mb/s write on the 960 pro so both are still good)

Given that the sample streaming drive i/o will be ALL reads (so also less wear & tear on the drive) I'd opt for one ssd for o/s+apps and one for sample content - that also means you can buy pro for the o/s drive and bigger for the same $ evo for samples (since the lower lifespan rating of the evo won't be an issue on a sample drive)

[Astralv]

Wow- if the picture you posted is the real size of computer, your computer is very small. Smaller than DVD?

Like other person pointed out, you will not run large files all the time- the file loads in memory and stays there while you using it until you restart. The important thing you should know is latency. If you use throttling, it will decrease system responsiveness in real time and cause clicks in your playback.

[Kaine]

I doubt you need to even bother with the heatsinks - thermal throttling on m2 is only likely an issue in laptops (zero space and no airflow around the drive)

Nope, I've seen it happen in Fractal tower cases with pretty much nothing else in there.

It's such an issue that the new X299 boards come with M.2. heatsinks built in. Otherwise I've been known to attach memory module heatsinks before, or adjust the air cooling a bit to improve cooling. None of this would really work in a NUC sized system however.

[Debutante]

^^^I've been looking into one for a system drive and that's all I've come across is the excess heating issue... on whatever board they're used on. Very hot!!! So it seems

[Rockatansky]

Well, I have a Samsung M.2 drive in my desktop, built on a Gigabyte Z170X-UD5-TH with intel 6700K and nVidia GTX 970. So it's not a weak mini PC that's sole purpose would consist of surfing and writing mails.
I keep all my music projects on my M.2 system drive (Satan! I know!), they consist of MANY .wav files that all stream from the M.2 at the same time, along with sampled drumkits with several GB of samples, along with sometimes several instances of Kontakt. That aside, I do work on the occasional 4K video project as well.
I have as many as zero M.2 temperature induced dropouts or crashes to report over the last 7 months, so since I built the machine.
My system definitely doesn't have any heatsinks, I didn't even connect the 2nd case fan because the temperature meters (software and BIOS) show it's unnecessary. Everything on my main board is passive, CPU/GPU aren't.
Healthy drive, healthy temperatures, healthy performance.

[Joe Garfield]

So I've been running this PC for a little while...
*Samsung 850 evo SATA drive for OS and programs
*Samsung 960 evo pci/e drive for sample library

I haven't looked at any throttling/driver/Samsung meters or software. I've only done a basic install of the PC with Win10, the drives with Samsung's drivers and software, and Native Instruments' Kontakt Player and sample libraries.

The PC starts up and automatically loads Kontakt Player in approximately 15 seconds (Win10 loads first/faster, then Kontakt loads. I have not yet disabled or prioritized background apps).

Native Instruments' The Grandeur piano loads to RAM in approximately 2-3 seconds.

Holding down the sustain pedal and hitting as many notes as possible, there are no dropouts or other issues. The sound is perfect and uninterrupted at all times. The meters shown in Kontakt are at something like 0% (RAM) and 12% (CPU, max). This is with 20GB RAM, and the i5 CPU running at 3.1GHz.

The PC case is 'warm' after playing, but I think it's also 'warm' after simply running. The entire PC isn't smaller than a DVD, but it's only 7.2 x 7.2 x 1.2 inches. There's a lot packed in a small space so a little bit of heat is expected. There is one small fan and a large heat sink connected to the processor, and that heat has to go somewhere... The fan/PC is virtually silent.

The m.2 drive is located on the bottom of the motherboard, very close to the bottom of the case where there is a vented door to access the drives. Note that many m.2 drive slots are located between other pci drive slots (for things like video cards which generate a lot of heat!) so internal cooling is basically nonexistent for many applications. That is not the case for the new Lenovo M710/M910. The older generations sandwiched the m.2 slot between the MoBo and the HDD/SSD where there was little to no cooling.

I don't have anything to compare audio software performance to, but this system loads fast and has been perfectly stable so far. My Kawai CS-11 digital piano takes a few seconds to start up and load everything, and the PC takes only a couple of seconds more.

I would absolutely build this system again. My goal was to have a PC that I could hide under my keyboard - my digital piano is actually a real piano cabinet with real piano keys, so it looks and feels very much like an acoustic. Seeing wires, screens, and lights takes away from the experience (for me), so the ability to make all that invisible, yet have the ability to emulate the stunning sound of a piano of choice was my goal.