M1 Compatibility Issue? External Drive is Unreadable / Causes Hard Crashes

Thanks for replying. I had forgotten to close out this forum with... ta da! The correct answer!

Sabrent eventually suggested that I use one of their TB3 enclosures for the M.2. I tried their own design, which was really really nice, and it works great for the 8TB model. I also tested the Sabrent waterproof USB-C enclosure for the 8TB model, and it did NOT work, despite the fact that the specs on that enclosure suggest full compatibility.

I am left to conclude, based on my argument with Sabrent tech support, that the 8TB drive actually has slightly different power requirements from the M.2 specification, and that most enclosures are not compatible with that particular drive. When I used Sabrent's own design for the TB3 enclosure, it is great--my favorite drive. I wish that their tech support had suggested that first, since using their enclosure is a $80 solution for a very expensive SSD.

Bottom line: the OWC and Sabrent enclosures both work fine for all SSDs I tested under 8TB, and only the Sabrent TB3 enclosure works with the Sabrent Rocket 8TB M.2 SSD.

Thanks for the feedback from everyone who took the time to say something, and thanks to the folks at the Apple Store who let me test these enclosures on some of their Genius Bar laptops!

Update... issue not solved yet, but I've isolated the problem to either a defective Sabrent 8TB drive, or widespread compatibility issues with Sabrent drives, not only on the M1 Mac, but also two other earlier Macs Mac to 2018, a Windows 7 surface laptop from 2019 and my Windows 10 PC's Thunderbolt expansion.

I tested the enclosures with a different 500GB M.2 SSD by Crucial, and both enclosures worked perfectly on the M1 and other systems! Unfortunately, Sabrent insists that mine is not a defective drive, and they point the finger at "Bug Sur" which suggests to me that they may not be taking the issue seriously enough. They also conveniently forget to notice to that their drive also failed on four other systems that were not running Big Sur: two macbok pros, a surface and my PC with TB3.

The same technical support person specifically stated that power requirements are different for different drives and he implied that the enclosures may not be adequate. Not true. Both enclosures are certified for their respective busses, and the M.2 spec has a maximum of 7 watts, which is a fraction of what USB-C and TB3 can deliver.

I requested a return for Sabrent to test my drive for defects, and they refused. At this point, I would simply recommend not using Sabrent drives until they can acknowledge that they either sold me a defective drive (most likely) or they have a widespread compatibility problem that nobody mentioned before (less likely).

For the community, I can affirm that the Crucial 500GB M.2 SSD works great with the Envoy Express TB3 enclosure at about 1400 MB/s on an M1, and about 900MB/ss with the same SSD in the Pluggable USB-C enclosure.

No need for further comments (unless it relates to getting better customer support from Sabrent!). I'll post a final update if they actually own up to the problem and fix it... Assume it's unresolved until that post and caveat emptor!

Yes, I have contacted OWC, but I appreciate your suggestion which is nevertheless useful. OWC issued me an RMA, and I might send the OWC Envoy Express back, but that would not explain why the same SSD works fine using the 'Plugable' brand USB-C enclosure (different from the OWC!) on an earlier Mac and PC, but fails to be recognized on the M1. In the M1, the drive brings up a dialog box for initializing it, and when I attempt that, the drive appears as a 97.8 TB SSD and fails to initialize. That suggests a compatibility issue between the M.2 SSD and the M1 Mac, not an issue with the OWC. I have an appointment with a Genius Bar person tomorrow, where we can hopefully test these enclosures on a few more Macs to gather data. Thanks for the

Thank you, Mr. Douglas. I contacted AppleCare support last week and I'm still waiting for a call back. I scheduled an appointment at a Genius Bar so that we can test the same drives on different generations of Macs and see if it's a compatibility issue or a defective drive or enclosure. I suspect that it's an issue with compatibility between the SSD and the M1 Macs, and that the issued I had with the drive not appearing on my PC via the TB3 enclosure was a red herring from a separate issue.