Actively cooled external SSD (USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3)

[Hexley]

Are there any actively cooled external SSDs whether it uses SATA or NVMe SSDs?

I have an iMac with a Fusion Drive whose HDD died.

Instead of cracking it open to swap out the dead drive it was suggested that I plug in an external SSD instead and boot off that

A friend of mine did this with his iMac and a Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 drive. The thing is once it gets really hot the Samsung throttles down the speed.

 

[Fishrrman]

A thunderbolt3 external drive = HOT!!

A USB3.1 gen2 external drive = hot (not quite as much)

A USB3 external drive = relatively cool

You haven't told us WHICH iMac you have (which would also tell us what kind of ports are on the back).

A USB3 external SSD would give you a decent speed boost without the heat.
Figure 430MBps reads, 350MBps writes.

You can either buy a "ready-to-use" drive, or buy a 2.5" "bare" SSD and a USB3 enclosure, and "put it together yourself" (easy). In my experience, the do-it-yourself method produces "the coolest" drive...

 

[Hexley]

2019 iMac with Thunderbolt 3 ports.

I am looking for actively cooled external SSDs with USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3.

I know the Samsung X5 thermal throttles

A thunderbolt3 external drive = HOT!!

A USB3.1 gen2 external drive = hot (not quite as much)

A USB3 external drive = relatively cool

You haven't told us WHICH iMac you have (which would also tell us what kind of ports are on the back).

A USB3 external SSD would give you a decent speed boost without the heat.
Figure 430MBps reads, 350MBps writes.

You can either buy a "ready-to-use" drive, or buy a 2.5" "bare" SSD and a USB3 enclosure, and "put it together yourself" (easy). In my experience, the do-it-yourself method produces "the coolest" drive...

 

[jgrove]

2019 iMac with Thunderbolt 3 ports.

I am looking for actively cooled external SSDs with USB 3 or Thunderbolt 3.

I know the Samsung X5 thermal throttles

Without knowing the thermal and throttling thresholds your stuck with enclosures. Which will all limit throughput when compared to the internally mounted one.

 

[xk991]

Are there any actively cooled external SSDs whether it uses SATA or NVMe SSDs?

OWC has a number of TB3 enclosures with fans, the ThunderBay 4 and ThunderBay 4 Mini take SATA drives. The Express 4M2 takes M.2 NVMe drives and doesn‘t have a fan but has more space and venting for airflow. Might be tall enough internally to allow for heatsinks on the drives too.