Some time ago I was hoping to get some faster I/O speeds for a Raspberry Pi project, so I got an M.2 SATA SSD and an enclosure to connect it to the Raspberry Pi. I quickly found while trying to copy the boot image onto the SSD that it frequently disconnected/disappeared from the filesystem. I could never reliably reproduce it, but it often seemed to break in the middle of large/sustained file copies. I did manage to get things set up for the Pi and get it to boot from the SSD. But it wouldn't be too long before the entire Pi would become unresponsive because the drive would disappear and the Pi couldn't read or write anything to it until I rebooted.
I assumed it was a problem with the enclosure rather than with the SSD, and rather than looking into it further I just put the project on hold for a few months until I came across the
DeskPi Pro 2.0 case, which has connections for mounting an M.2 SATA SSD to an internal 2.5" SATA slot.
The issue still persisted whether in the enclosure or in the case, on both Linux and Windows, so I've since sold the Raspberry Pi and the DeskPi because it wasn't working for my intended use. I realize now that it was probably the SSD that was faulty, since the problem remained across different devices and OSes, with only the SSD being the common factor.
Because the drive is unreliable, I've been using it only as a kind of temporary backup device for short-term backups or other ultimately unimportant experiments. Large/sustained copy operations of a few GB in size will often break partway through because the drive disappears, but if I can get the data copied to the drive, it seems to stay there. But it's not just large copy operations that break the thing. I've left the drive tucked away by my PC tower, plugged in, and even when I haven't actually used the drive for weeks I occasionally notice that it's no longer appearing in my list of drives and I have to disconnect it and reconnect the USB cable to get it to show up again.
It's a (Silicon Power) SP M.2 2280 SATA III A55 256GB.
This is my first experience with M.2 drives, and though I'd like some of the theoretical faster speeds, I've been hesitant to buy another. Is this kind of thing a known or fairly commonplace issue with M.2 drives? Is there anything I can do to fix the issue or am I out of luck? Is there something I'm doing wrong? Did I just get a faulty drive which should have been replaced under warranty? Or perhaps I bought a make or model that is known for being unreliable?
