Do I need a thermal pad for a SSD in a laptop?

[GhoulishComet]

So to be clear, i am planning to get a 2230 pcie4 (Hiksemi Future Eco M.2 1TB PCIe 4.0 2230 Internal SSD) got my laptop which has only 512ssd currently and the second SSD slot is a 2242 size. Main reason I feel like I need one is because from what i see from the product gallery, I don't see there is any heat dissipation covering on any p art of the ssd (the controller, NAND, etc.)

And if I do need a thermal pad, which would you Recommend?

 

[JollyJamma]

No, you don't need a thermal pad for an SSD, especially that one.

People freak out about heat and an SSD but unless you're hammering the SSD with regular small I/O requests, it won't make a difference.

The only situation where you may see a small temperature increase is when you're downloading files from steam and the system extracts them but even then, it won't be an issue.

I have an SN850X SSD in my laptop and it doesn't overheat at all and I smash it's face with allt types of data. Also, if your SSD does need cooling, a thermal pad by itself won't do very much, you'd need to add a heatsink to it.

 

[goldfritter]

Also, if your SSD does need cooling, a thermal pad by itself won't do very much, you'd need to add a heatsink to it.

This is an important point. A thermal pad transfers heat from a component to its heatsink. If there's no heatsink, a pad will do nothing.

 

[JollyJamma]

This is an important point. A thermal pad transfers heat from a component to its heatsink. If there's no heatsink, a pad will do nothing.

Yup. Depending on the location of the SSD and the airflow and other factors, a thermal pad might make things worse.