There’s a report that a Phison-based NVME SSD can fail within minutes if no heatsink or other cooling mechanism is installed. I am not sure 13 pro’s main board or bottom side of the keyboard module have space allowing heatsink installation over NVME. Are any tests against NVME’s durability under heavy use without heatsink ever conducted?
Thanks!
It’s probably better to use other SSDs. An SSD shouldn’t just “fail” when overheated, they might slow down but they shouldn’t fail. If an SSD overheats within minutes, its energy efficiency is pretty low, which leads to poor battery life, negating the advantage of LPCAMM2 RAM.
On the bright side failing very quickly and reliably is a hell of a lot better than after some time or intermittently but that is certainly not how they are intended to work.
Cooling on ssds is supposed to be for more performance not for them the stay functional at all.
Not necessarily, depending on power density and insulation you can get extremely hot with very little power. (But it is certainly not a good sign, very likely a bug though)
Don’t buy them if they are defective.
Temperature sensors exist. All SSD will have at least one. If an SSD fails to throttle itself to keep it’s self-heating controlled enough to prevent self-destruction “within minutes” then it is defective.
From https://www.phoronix.com/news/PCIe5-NVMe-SSD-Fail-3-Minutes
Our firmware engineering teams have already isolated the problem and made the necessary adjustments to the thermal throttle curve within hours of the report. However, the new firmware must undergo Phison’s strict validation process before our partners can release it to customers. Rest assured our partners will notify end-users as soon as the validated update is available.
It is important to note that all E26 SSDs shipped without a heatsink are intended to be used with a heatsink. Most motherboards shipping with PCIe Gen5 enabled also include cooling specifically designed for Gen5 SSDs. We offer the ‘bare drive’ option to allow customers to use their existing cooling products.
Cute. Translation, we are trying to blame our customers for our defective firmware, which is destroying our hardware.
“heatsink” span a huge range from large finned aluminum with a fan, to thin copper sheets for laptops with minimal clearance. Phison, where is the line, for what would you consider a good enough heatsink, for you to not blame your customers for your defective firmware?
Phison pcie 5.0 31e NVME is an DIY option provided by Framework, that’s why I am concerning if Framework team have tested the cases of heavy I/O in a short period of time.
It does not seem likely that they would sell a product that would fail under the load of e.g. installing an operating system, no.
Can you give the model number of the SSD(s) you’re talking about?
Do you mean E31?
On the DIY configure page I see
Phison PS5031-E31T PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 - 500GB
Phison PS5031-E31T PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 - 1TB
Phison PS5031-E31T PCIe 5.0 M.2 2280 - 2TB
It looks like their E31 chips are a different line from the E26 chips with the defective firmware mentioned in the article.
phison.com/en/gen5-e26-ssd-partner-ecosystem
phoronix.com/news/PCIe5-NVMe-SSD-Fail-3-Minutes
After carefully reviewing the recent reports from TechPowerUp and Phoronix, Phison would like to acknowledge the issue found in the reviews of products using the new Phison PS5026-E26 controller.
Yes, I mean E31 series. Although E31 and E26 are different, they may suffer the same thermal failure/throttle issue, i just wonder if the 13 pro’s mainboard and keyboard have space to allow heatsink installation to workaround Phison’s thermal problem.
There is a decent chance they just sent them a “juiced to the giills” reviewer firmware hoping to get slightly better numbers on a chart and it just bit them in the ass.
One of the marketing photos on the announcement blog post suggests that there is a thermal pad beneath the SSD.
The latest blog post from Framework sounds like they are moving to Adata anyways.
Not sure if this new Adata option provides better thermal performance as the SSD’s operating temperature is a quite important factor affecting a laptop’s usability. Also, it’s practically impossible to install active cooling mechansim on SSD on any framework laptops, I believe Framework team had done some comprehensive tests on this SSD that throttle/failure won’t happen under heavy load, please correct me if I am wrong.
The issue is not “thermal performance”. The issue was Phison’s defective firmware killing E26 series drives, and Phison attempting to blame their customers for it.
If Adata has not done that, then they are a better choice in that regard.
Even it the firmware is not defective, Phison will throttle the speed harder due to heat generated. In the end, the winning SSD is the SSD that has the most GB read/written per Joule.
