MP 6,1 Sabrent Rocket 8TB in TrashCan Heatsink?

[Croydene]

I am looking at installing an 8tb Sabrent in my Mac Pro 6.1. Could anyone suggest the best heatsink to go with it?

From what I understand the 8tb has dual-sided memory, would there be room for a double sided heatsink? I hear this drive runs really hot so it may be needed...

Could something like this work?

M.2 NVME/NGFF SSD Heatsink Radiator Cooling Fin Cooler with Silicone Thermal Pad, Double-Sided Heat Sink

www.amazon.com

thanks for your assistance.

 

[mikas]

I really don't know, but I have just measured the height of that space for fitting NVMe heatsink in a Mac Pro 6,1.
I'd say 17mm of height, with a width of 25mm would fit the enclosure. Even a little bit more if heatsink is on two sides, because the lower side takes approx 2mm off from the total height I measured from the slot to the Mac Pro cylindrical case. Heatsink can be sometihng like 85mm long at the most, but depends how it's attached to theSSD drive. Uhh, it's so hard to explain with words, you know what I mean. It was too hard to take pictures with all the rulers and stuff with just two hands.

I would make sure you get the right thermal pads with the drive (Sabrent 8TB here) if you decide to go for that one. Is it flat design, or is there a controller with more or less height than what the memory chips are? You might need some extra thermal pads maybe.

I just ordered a few EKWB heat sinks for my single sided Kingstons and Samsungs (would not fit for your big Sabrent though).
EKWB EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink, Black
Don't mind the dimensions on that Amazon page, they are annonced just wrong in the page I believe.

In my opinion a slight problem with 6,1 is that there is no air flow directed through that SSD location. Yes, it's open from the bottom, but the top fan (and only fan in it) doesn't seem to suck any air through that route. At least it seems so to me. The fan assembly does have a round sleeve up in there on the outmost circle of it, thus blocking the suction of air from the outer sides of the GPUs.

Maybe the heatsinks will help with that a little, we can hope.

 

[Croydene]

I really don't know, but I have just measured the height of that space for fitting NVMe heatsink in a Mac Pro 6,1.
I'd say 17mm of height, with a width of 25mm would fit the enclosure. Even a little bit more if heatsink is on two sides, because the lower side takes approx 2mm off from the total height I measured from the slot to the Mac Pro cylindrical case. Heatsink can be sometihng like 85mm long at the most, but depends how it's attached to theSSD drive. Uhh, it's so hard to explain with words, you know what I mean. It was too hard to take pictures with all the rulers and stuff with just two hands.

View attachment 1952105 View attachment 1952106

I would make sure you get the right thermal pads with the drive (Sabrent 8TB here) if you decide to go for that one. Is it flat design, or is there a controller with more or less height than what the memory chips are? You might need some extra thermal pads maybe.

I just ordered a few EKWB heat sinks for my single sided Kingstons and Samsungs (would not fit for your big Sabrent though).
EKWB EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink, Black
Don't mind the dimensions on that Amazon page, they are annonced just wrong in the page I believe.

In my opinion a slight problem with 6,1 is that there is no air flow directed through that SSD location. Yes, it's open from the bottom, but the top fan (and only fan in it) doesn't seem to suck any air through that route. At least it seems so to me. The fan assembly does have a round sleeve up in there on the outmost circle of it, thus blocking the suction of air from the outer sides of the GPUs.

Maybe the heatsinks will help with that a little, we can hope.

Thanks so much for the advise! Looking at the dimensions of this heatsink https://www.amazon.com/Heatsink-Radiator-Cooling-Silicone-Double-Sided/dp/B07PJD4H9B - 75mm x 26mm x 17mm it would seem to fit within your measurements, apart from the width which is over by 1mm. I've give it a go and feedback.

I think you are correct about getting the correct pads so will do that as well.

thanks again

 

[MisterAndrew]

Have you read this thread?

Mac Pro 6.1, new 4TB NVMe blades — is it possible and is anyone using?

A couple of examples. Sabrent 4TB OWC 4TB m2 Yes I know about the Simtech adapter – not my first trip to the rodeo. I’m wondering if, since they are double-sided, if there are clearance issues. Likewise, if there’s a possibility of avoiding major heat problems in the limited space.

forums.macrumors.com

Let us know if you find a good solution.

 

[Croydene]

Success !

I have now installed the 8tb Sabrent and can report the following.

Having read as many posts as possible on the subject of the Sabrent overheating my aim has been to try and mitigate this as much as possible.

The first thing was to do a thorough clean of my Mac, as well as re-apply new thermopaste to the CPU as this has never been done since it’s purchase in 2013. This alone made an improvement of 6-8c on the CPU operating temperature and the machine felt generally more responsive.

I also purchased a laptop cooler to assist with more ventilation, it’s not obvious as to how much this has helped but it can’t harm to have one.

I installed the Sabrent drive without the heatsink to get an idea of temperatures. Having read that the drive should not exceed 70c I am using TG Pro to assist with fan speed control. The average temperature was between 45-53c. When putting the drive though its paces it would bump up to around 58-60c. TG Pro worked well and pulled things back down although the fans were working fairly hard. At one point the drive went up to 63c which was a little to close for comfort so I went to the next step of using the thermopads and heatsink. The heatsink fitted perfectly in the unit.

I must say this addition has made a very big difference. I am now getting average temperature of 38c and pushing no higher than 53c on big tasks.

The speed compared to the previous standard Mac drive is substantial to say the least.

CLEANING UNIT
12-core CPU Upgrade: Mac Pro 6,1 - A Good Idea in 2020? - Part 2

COOLER PAD
Cooler Master NotePal X-Slim II Laptop Cooling Pad 'Silent 200mm Fan, Egonomic Design, Supports up to 15.6" laptops' R9-NBC-XS2K-GP
https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-X-SLIM-II-R9-NBC-XS2K-GP/dp/B00IFQHJDM

HEATINK & THEMOPADS INSTALLATION
Stop your Samsung NVMe SSD from Overheating and Thermal Throttling

?

 

[mikas]

Just revisiting the subject briefly. I use BeQuiet MC1. It fits, and you can mount it with the original screw in a sufficient way. The screw is not long enough to go through the depth of the whole mount, but yöu can pretty easily fit it through the last sleeve of the heatsink. Please see pics. I tried others too, but I think this was the easiest to handle overall.

Temperatures have been good. But now I can see they have a design with an integrated heatpipe too. BeQuiet MC1 Pro. Maybe I'll want to test that one too. Have to check carefully the height/depth/width of it first. There's not that much extra room for a bigger one than I have now in my 6,1s. But there is some room left still.

 

[mikas]

There you can see the heatsink. It seems to be thicker than MC1 though, hmm.