Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Is this normal behavior for an SSD hard drive?

A

Alain Ternet

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 27, 2023
22
2
My external SSD (WS Black SN850x on Acasis TBU405 Pro) become very hot when my mac is asleep, shouldn't the SSD also go to sleep and stop heating? My 27" IMac is always open and is more often in sleep mode than in activity, it would not be normal for the SSD to heat up 24 hours a day.

Do your external SSD drives behave like this for you?
 
My (two) external SSDs are just barely warm in normal usage, hardly warmer than room temp when my iMac is asleep.

Could be the Acasis controller or the SSD stick is constantly doing some work, for some reason.
 
My Sandisk 1TB drive is cold or room temperature when my iMac is asleep. My Sandisk 1 TB Thunderbolt drive stays warm even when the iMac is sleeping. I do not like that.
 
OP:

What your post suggests is that something "is going on" while your Mac purports to be "sleeping".
And whatever IS going on, is generating a high amount of activity on the SSD, which is resulting in it becoming hot.

Also...
I have only one nvme drive, in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure. I've noticed that during extended writes, it becomes "overly warm" as well. I believe that something in the nvme design generates more heat than do other SSD's (such as 2.5" SATA drives). Speed could certainly have something to do with it.

But when these drives are truly "at idle", they're not hot at all. That's why I think you have a runaway background activity going on during "sleep"...
 
Alain Ternet said:
My external SSD (WS Black SN850x on Acasis TBU405 Pro) become very hot when my mac is asleep, shouldn't the SSD also go to sleep and stop heating? My 27" IMac is always open and is more often in sleep mode than in activity, it would not be normal for the SSD to heat up 24 hours a day.

Do your external SSD drives behave like this for you?
Click to expand...
You may need to check:
- is the Time Machine backup running? Usually it prompts to use the disk when first inserted
- did you use driver from manufacturer? Perhaps there is compatibility issues which result never ending process. Try uninstall the driver and reformat the disk using Disk Utility

Hope this helps.
 
Isamilis said:
You may need to check:
- is the Time Machine backup running? Usually it prompts to use the disk when first inserted
- did you use driver from manufacturer? Perhaps there is compatibility issues which result never ending process. Try uninstall the driver and reformat the disk using Disk Utility

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

No Time machine active.
And I never installed any driver for hard disc on my Mac. Do I need to install a driver for a ssd ?
 
Bigwaff said:
Perhaps only the display is in sleep mode. The Mac might still be running processes.
Click to expand...

I do not think so . . . .


According to my watt meter the iMac, while running, uses about 23-27 watts. Under heavy CPU use, mine will show around 30 watts being used. In sleep mode it cycles down to 3-4 watts, so it can not be doing much except heating up the external drive!
 
Alain Ternet said:
No Time machine active.
And I never installed any driver for hard disc on my Mac. Do I need to install a driver for a ssd ?
Click to expand...
You can try installing the driver. It’s possible, the internal driver from macOS has an issue with this particular SSD.
 
More is going on than I realized, even only using a few watts, as when my iMac is off is still is aware enough to hear and respond to a Siri command . . . . .
 
Bigwaff said:
The TBU405Pro is the one with the fan, yes? And the fan is working?
Click to expand...
Yes, it's the one with the fan. When it run with the fan de disc is warm. When I put the Mac on sleep I power off the fan since I will not use it until the next day (it have one button to switch off the fan). Since the Mac is on sleep, normally the ssd would be in sleep mode too and don't need the fan...
 
I have by TBU405 (housing a 2TB SkHynix P31) resting atop my Studio, and it does not feel warm, at all.

Here's a 7d iStat graph (I've only had it four days):

TBU405-SkHP31.jpg


Seems to hover at around 40C

50C spike was when I forgot to set it atop the Studio.

I have not performed extensive disk operations with it, yet.
 
splifingate said:
I have by TBU405 (housing a 2TB SkHynix P31) resting atop my Studio, and it does not feel warm, at all.

Here's a 7d iStat graph (I've only had it four days):

View attachment 2320692

Seems to hover at around 40C

50C spike was when I forgot to set it atop the Studio.

I have not performed extensive disk operations with it, yet.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. What app do you use to monitoring the temp ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: splifingate
I guess that is a trade-off: speed, but with 100% access to the system bus (through the thunderbolt connection), meaning that if power is on, the thunderbolt drive always can access the system bus - even while sleeping.
And, the drive never powers down, so that's where the heat comes from.
You don't really want to turn the fan off, in that circumstance.

Unless that Acasis is your system boot drive, you could consider unmounting/ejecting the drive before you sleep your Mac.
 
DeltaMac said:
I guess that is a trade-off: speed, but with 100% access to the system bus (through the thunderbolt connection), meaning that if power is on, the thunderbolt drive always can access the system bus - even while sleeping.
And, the drive never powers down, so that's where the heat comes from.
You don't really want to turn the fan off, in that circumstance.

Unless that Acasis is your system boot drive, you could consider unmounting/ejecting the drive before you sleep your Mac.
Click to expand...
I eject all my unused backup drives normally. I tried to make the same (unmount) when not in use for this new ssd and the result is the same, it still keep hot... 🥵 why it hot when unmounted ? That doesn't seem to make sense to me.
 
I have 2 different Solidigm P41Plus drives in 2 different ASUS External USBc enclosures and both are cold to the touch connected to my Dell Dock that's connected to my Macbook Pro M3 Pro. That brand Acasis TBU405 Pro external enclosure seems to have mixed reviews. Do you have a different external enclosure you could try out? Or different computer to attach them to and see if you observe the same heat?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back