NVMe Throttling

Category: infrastructure

The loss of SSD speed when the drive gets too hot during heavy sustained data transfers.

Small, fast NVMe drives can get incredibly hot. If you copy 500GB of video files, the drive might hit 80°C and drop its speed by 70%. Many high-end boards come with "heatsinks" specifically to stop this NVMe throttling.

Common Examples

• Our sustained write speeds were dropping due to NVMe throttling, which we solved by installing an aftermarket thermal pad and heatsink.
• NVMe throttling is a common issue in compact builds where airflow is restricted around the M.2 slots on the motherboard.