Measuring temperature of MY PASSPORT SSD

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Level 2

410 points

Measuring temperature of MY PASSPORT SSD

I just got a MY PASSPORT SSD. I haven't finished setting it up but I have noticed that it runs at a VERY HIGH TEMPERATURE. At first, I thought that it would not be possible to hold it in my hand because of the high temperature, but now I can, although I think that if it were to be in contact with a wooden surface for a prolonged period of time, it might cause a fire. Anyway, I want a more accurate reading of its temperature.What is a good app for doing that? I might add that I have "System Monitor," but it doesn't seem to be good for this purpose.

I bought it for use with my iMac. Was that a mistake?

Posted on Aug 23, 2020 7:27 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,218 points

Aug 23, 2020 8:33 AM in response to Niku

The operating system can sense CPU and GPU temperatures because it is designed to do that. Sensing temperatures in a USB attached, third-party drive is not designed into the operating system. I would exchange that My Passport for another, and see if the new one has the same thermal behavior.

Otherwise, duct tape a cooking thermometer probe to the drive, and see what temperature it reports.

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Answer 2

Aug 23, 2020 9:01 AM in response to Niku

If it is like that without doing long and prolonged

file transfers, I would return it.

SSDs will typically be warm to the touch (not hot) and may warm

up a bit more when doing a large amount of data moving. But it

is just sitting idle and is getting too hat to touch, there is an issue.

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Answer 3

steve626

Level 6

13,791 points

Aug 23, 2020 7:36 PM in response to Niku

The internal SSD on my 2008 iMac is 66 deg C (150 F) as measured by DriveDX, which says this is "ok." The only things running are Safari and Chrome right now, although there are at least dozen windows open.

I have several external SSD's, including a Passport SSD, Samsung T5 SSD, Samsung T7 SSD, and a G-Drive SSD. These are all 1 TB or 2 TB drives. They are all used for backups on newer computers (e.g. 2019 Macbook Pro 16"), either Time Machine or SuperDuper (clone) backups. ALL of them get quite warm, perhaps even a little hot, during the type of extended copy activity for such backups. They are running typically at 200-700 MB/s continuously for the backups, which are typically short now that they are just "updates," but the initial backup took about 30-45 minutes, so the disks were very warm when working hard like that. So that's three different manufacturers and they all get a little bit "hot" when doing extended copying.

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Answer 4

Niku Author

Level 2

410 points

Aug 23, 2020 9:12 AM in response to VikingOSX

Using iStat, an application I had forgotten about, I got a temperature reading for MY PASSPORT SSD of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. (52 degrees Centigrade). Of course, I haven't been doing anything with it, so it has cooled down considerably. It no longer feels too hot to hold.

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Answer 5

HWTech

Level 9

68,606 points

Aug 23, 2020 7:13 PM in response to Niku

Most SSDs will throttle themselves by slowing down the data transfer once the SSD temp goes above 70C. When writing non-stop to an SSD for an extended period of time some of them can become extremely hot even when they are working correctly (even above the 70C critical temperature). It all depends on the quality of the actual SSD and whether the enclosure it is installed into has adequate cooling or heat dissipation. I've never used a My Passport SSD so I don't know what they are like or how they behave.

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