I just transferred like 3mb of image data from a "256GB Sandisk Extreme PRO USB 3.1" and my goodness was it ever hot for transferring such a small amount of files over such a short period of time imho.<p>To the point that I started worrying about it's trustworthiness... surely that much wear and tear with heating up/cooling down over time can't be good?<p>Would gladly settle for a much "slower" USB drive if it did not as hot and would hopefully be a bit more reliable longterm?
I've wondered about this for years now. Why do USB drives get so hot? My SD cards don't. Maybe it is the interface chip? But my tiny USB card readers don't get hot and they have more design constraints.<p>Maybe it's because of cheap components that push thermal limits to keep the prices down? I'd love to hear some insights from someone working lose to that field.
Does the drive capacity influence temperature? Not necessarily. I've got the same brand of 128GB and 256GB drive they don't run any different in temperature. Perhaps attach a heatsink if it bothers you. I've done that with harddrives I've run for long periods on hot days. I've done that even with a little drive smaller than my thumb.<p>On a related note, I had a little usb flash drive (verbatim) that was very hot and after I inspected it I discovered a fault on the board, an actual hotspot which didn't exist on another similar device. I promptly got my data off the drive. A few months later I plugged it in out of curiosity and the drive started to cook itself. I pulled it out and it was too hot to touch, so I promptly destroyed it. I figured the thing was going to take out my computer sooner or later anyway.
I prefer using Adapter-Variants:<p>SanDisk MobileMate with a fast MicroSD<p>Noname NVMe Adapter with a used Intel Optane or Samsung 950/960/970 Pro/Evo<p>For USB Sticks I use SanDisk Ultra Flair.
They can get hot but this should be acceptable per the design spec.<p>From what I can find that drive is rated at:<p>> -13 to 185 °F (-25 to 85 °C)<p>So as long as it's not cooking above 185F/85C you should be ok.
The properties of silicon change in a reversible way as temperature changes and a little bit above 100 centigrade most devices fail to work. It doesn’t kill the device.<p>People used to think that the lifetime of electronics was shortened by high temps in the normal range but when hyperscalers started building modern data centers they found they could run hotter than data centers used to without ill effect.
Try an m.2 enclosure and bring your own NVMe drive :) <a href="https://plugable.com/products/usbc-nvme/" rel="nofollow">https://plugable.com/products/usbc-nvme/</a>
Oh my, thank you ! I thought I somewhat had a problem with either the drives I bought last 3 years or my laptop (3 years as well). Simply plugging the drive and waiting 5 minutes gets it hot.