M4 128GB - missing SMART temperature and Stutter issue [ Edited ]

[#1]

Just got my first Crucial SSD - M4 128GB...

Just checking - Is it normal for this SSD to Not to have SMART temperature readings?  I just get a blank reading when using SMART monitoring programs (such as Speccy, CrystalDiskInfo, etc); my previous SSDs (***Edited to remove Crucial competitor***) did display SMART temperature readings...

I also noticed that I got the C300 stutter issue in Windows 7 / Asus P67 mainboard - this was resolved by enabling Hot Swap in the uEFI BIOS for the SATA ports.

TIA

[#2]

SSD's don't generate heat, aren't especially heat sensitive, and so don't have thermometers.

[#3]

WRONG!

SSD's consume power and as a result generate heat: Particularly the disc controller on high performance SSD drives such as Marvell controller found on Crucial M4 does generate heat, and it's more frequent than you think. (particularly during trim operations in the background).

So, the answer is: Modern SSDs ( as of this writing 2010-2011 such as ***Edited to remove Crucial competitor*** crucial M4 or micron c400) generate considerable amount of heat sporadically.

[#4]

I can confirm that temperature on my new M4 128gb SSD is higher than a normal HD: I don't know exactly how much, as speccy doesnt report temperature, but I can feel it by hand: my notebook now is more hot on the SSd side...

[#5]

Not to the extent that a CPU or GPU does and not to the extent that it's a danger to the drive so it doesn't need monitored.  Frankly, nor do harddisks as a rule so I'm not sure who first started the trend of monitoring them.  Probably was originally more for server use than home use.

[#6]

I'm really sorry, I was wrong about SSD temperature: the SSD is on the other side of the notebook,  

By the way, is there any other tool to verify SSD temperature?

[#7]

Not that there should really ever be a heat related issue with an SSD (no moving parts), but you could place a household thermometer in the case on top of the SSD. My SSD is in a laptop that runs 24/7, 8 days a week. I monitor servers with it, so it is always online and running. Every couple of weeks, I clean out the laptop with air. So I remove the SSD, DVD ROM, and battery before opening up the case. It has never been above 35 C. And I believe that heat is caused by it's close proximity to the graphics card and the airflow pushing the GPU's hot air across the SSD. But if you're conscience needs to be cleared, use a thermometer.

[#8]

It isn't much to worry about. The 512Gb M4 draws a maximum of 5.5W on write and 2.5W on read and those are the highest. Even so, the reads and writes are so fast and short term the heat is dissipated quickly. The active average is 0.28W with an idle consumption less than 0.10W. The 256Gb and 128Gb drives are less in all the current consumption readings.

I know when I loaded the OS on my C300 it was only noticeably warmer than ambient. That's not even warm in my book. Certainly no where near the 70c maximum in the spec. It's just not worth worrying about.

[#9]

Interesting reading the above.  I use an M4 on my MacBook Pro and iStats cannot display the temperature.

Though hopefully not an issue, I have read that some iMac's which have had their disks replaced with SSD's with no temperature reading, or no external temperature connector are reported running at 120 degrees.

Is there any way to get the SSD to report the temperature?  

In case Apple release a firmware update whereby if a hard drive's temperature is not reported, the Apple shuts down.

Thanks!

Adrian.

[#10]

The issue is specifically with the iMac so you should have no problem.  As SSD's don't have thermometers it would be really weird of Apple to retroactively add the requirement for that in the future and screw up their compatibility with performance drives.

With the iMac the problem can be averted through the use of third party software: http://www.hddfancontrol.com/