Preparing NVME drive for installation

I’ve gotten a UGreen NVMe PCIe adapter + Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe storage drive for the Mac Pro.

The UGreen NVMe PCIe adapter came with screws, two thermal pads of different thickness and a long heatsink. I’ve noted stacking the two thermal pads weren’t optimal. I’ve noted the Samsung NMVe drive flexed when the two thermal pads were installed. More importantly, there’s still a gap between the thermal pads and heatsink.

Above: NVMe drive had flexed when two thermal pads were installed.

So scratch the two thermal pad approach.

I then turned to the single (thicker) thermal pad and noticed it didn’t flex the NVMe drive now, but it wasn’t touching the heatsink fully.

Above: Single (thicker) thermal pad on the Samsung NVMe. Below: Airgap between the thermal pad and the heatsink.

As the NVMe drive runs pretty hot, I’ve applied thermal grease liberally on the surfaces between the heatsink and the thermal pads.