Kingston Fury renegade M.2 nvme keeps getting disconnected in Mac Mini M2

DIY drives with enclosures and NVME SSDs is an adventure at best. It can take a lot of experimentation or on line research to determine which enclosure and NVME SSD combination will work for a given system.

It has been documented by many reviewers that certain combos can be a disaster on macOS while performing just fine on Windows systems. They have also found that certain combos can work fine with macOS but are big headaches with Windows systems. Issues can range from destroying the NVME, not working at all, very poor data transfer performance and inconsistent operation as you are seeing.

So, the bottom line is that you can't just slap together any NVME with any enclosure even though many vendors tend to make you believe so.

I would see first, which NVME the enclosure manufacturers say they have tested with their enclosures and on what systems and what they actually recommend. Also, search the internet for reviews on specific enclosures where people have actually tested them on Macs.

Also, depending on the enclosure, getting a super high performance SSD is a waste of money. Generally, for a Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB4 enclosure the max speed you will generally get is 2800-3000 MB/s transfer rates (typically in real world will be around 2200-2400 MB/s) and with USB 3.2 around 750-1200 MB/s (regardless of manufacturer claims).

So, the NVME you purchased is major overkill for the actual performance you will get wit h an external drive.

Personally, I have purchased a couple months ago a Sabrent USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 10GB/s enclosure (EC-SNVE

) and put a Samsung 980 pro NVME in it and it is connected 24/7 and have had no issues with it.

What external enclosure do you have the SSD in...?

To sort out the trouble, I would test the Kingston SSD in a different enclosure and/or test a different SSD in the enclosure.

rakeycr7 wrote:

Honestly I don’t really have any other enclosure or SSD !! It’s Sabrent, I thought they were one of the top guys in the market !!

I've had good luck with the Sabrent enclosures that I have. At this point I would try a different SSD (WD, Crucial, PNY) in the Sabrent enclosure. Then if one of those work, I would get my money back for the Kingston SSD.

rakeycr7 wrote:

Honestly I don’t really have any other enclosure or SSD !! It’s Sabrent, I thought they were one of the top guys in the market !!

Sabrent does make pretty good enclosures but that still does not mean they are compatible with 100% of all NVME SSDs. I would return the Kingston SSD (which is way overkill anyway) and get a Samsung 980 Pro (or 990 Pro if you can find a good price), Sabrent Rocket 4 (since it is a Sabrent enclosure and I would think Sabrent tested with their own SSDs), or perhaps a WD Black series in that order.

I have done a lot of research in the recent past and it seems in general, the Samsung Pro series SSDs tend to play the best with Thunderbolt enclosures from various vendors. The one reason I purchased the Samsung for my USB 3.2 Gen 2 enclosure (way overkill) was I may want to get a Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB4 enclosure in the future and the Samsung had the broadest compatibility.

Also, as I somewhat stated earlier, some NVME SSDs simply do not play well with macOS for what ever reason.

What else do you have connected in the USB-C ports (assuming this is USB C ?)

As you say ''for my production'', do you also have anything such as a TB 3 audio interface ? I have a mini 2018 and I know there is some kind of differences, when using all 4 slots - some combination to do, some slots acting differently if there's something else on the next slot... I don't remember exactly that sequence. How many USB-C(TB) slots do you have ? (the 2018 has 4, but I know newer minis have only 2 unless you opt for the mini ''pro'' (if this still exists)

I have several WD NVME drives and I use Trebleet and Acasis enclosures (TB3). I like the Acasis best. I have no issues with either enclosure. All are formatted APFS and I never use sleep on my Mac to prevent disconnects.