Kingston NV2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 lost it's contents twice

[Bicurico]

Hello,

I have a 1TB Kingston NV2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 disk in an external USB 3.0 enclosure (with RTL9210 chipset).

I use this disk as a backup disk and to transfer large amount of data from one computer to the other (though I have used it only very few times).

So after having it sitting on the desk for a few months, I inserted it and all data was gone. For the second time! The first time I thought I made some mistake or did not correctly insert the disk into the PCB of the external device. But I am sure now, that it wasn't me.

Otherwise (apart from losing all contents), the disk works fine. I copied the data back onto it (really fast) and checked it. All ok.

But I am sure that if I leave this disk sitting on the desk for a few months, all data will be gone again. I definitely don't trust it anymore.

Now the question is: is this due to the enclosure with the RTL2910 chipset or is the Kingston M.2 bad? Do these disks need to be connected to power after a given period of time (that wouldn't make sense, otherwise many less used laptops would be rendered useless without the OS.

Both (the enclosure and M.2) are still convered by warranty, but how do I claim this? The disk is working just fine now and when it loses all contents it is working fine, too!

Any ideas?

Vitor

RTL9210 NVMW

[thm_w]

The data was gone, but it was formatted and readable? Or the data was gone, in that the drive was completely non-usable and you had to format it again? External m.2 enclosures seem to commonly have issues.

SSD's need to be powered on to retain data, but its usually quoted at 6-12 months of non-powered storage.

See if the Kingston SSD Manager will read the drive and give you any useful info.

[amyk]

Quick search online reveals this model has a bunch of different configurations, but most if not all of them use QLC flash - the worst type for retention and endurance.

Try storing it in the refrigerator, retention is exponential with temperature.

[Whales]

It doesn't matter whether it's QLC or not, lasting only a few months is a faulty product.

> The data was gone, but it was formatted and readable?

My thoughts exactly.  Did you have to reformat the disk before copying your files back on?

Data corruption caused by a faulty disk will corrupt files and/or the filesystem, but it won't "delete" files.  If files are being deleted then it's being done by a person, some software or a dodgy filesystem.  (I've seen the latter on FAT formatted devices, but you probably won't be using that on a disk this big)

[DavidAlfa]

For long-term storage, nothing like HDDs!
Some SSDs were so bad that they had to constantly refresh the cells in the background to prevent data loss.
This might be one of these...

[Bicurico]

The two times this happend the files were simply gone.
This second time this happend, I noticed that the properties showed that the disk was x% full, but no files were available. I checked if they were for some reason flagged as hidden, but that was not the case
I started a disk check from Windows and after that the disk was 100% free. I could write to the disk and no errors appeared

Very strange.

The disk was left disconnected some 3-6 months, I can't precisely tell.

[amyk]

The disk was left disconnected some 3-6 months, I can't precisely tell.

At what temperature was it stored?

[Whales]

Woah.

If this were media failure then you would be seeing corrupted file contents and corrupted filesystems ("Windows cannot read the drive" or similar) at vastly higher statistical rates than the very specific and surgical edits to bits required to delete (unlink) files.

... unless your operating system is silently "fixing" the filesystem (ie basically reformatting it) without telling you?

Q: What filesystem are you using on the bad disk?
Q: What operating system are you using?
Q: Does your OS have any kind of logs that would show the problem?  Event viewer on Windows, dmesg/syslogs on Linux.

[Bicurico]

I have to check.
The empty folder popped up right away after inserting the disk drive on a USB3 port, so no background OS activity.
I am using Windows 11 Professional with automatic updates.
Storage was room temperature, between 20 degrees C normally and about 25 degrees on hot summer days. Temperature was more or less constant, because I left the drive on top of the computer, which runs 24/7/365.
I did not check any logs. Will check later.

At this point I think that the drive is faulty and/or loses it's data after a few month unpowered.

[Lindley]

When we upgraded our motherboard with NMVe slots and fitted a 512mb Kingston  we had quiet a few strange happenings.
Looking on the and web seems quiet a few folk had similar problems and that some of their Kingstone NVMe drives run very hot and when checking ours they showed a typical temp of 60c !  TA 20c

Replaced ours with a Crucial one and it runs a 28c.

As said above, we only use HDDs for in our backup drives.  As we have proven on our own pcs over the last few years, SSDs do not last anywhere as long as HDDs, though doubltess not everyone will  agree.

[Bicurico]

I bought this drive primarily to quickly transfer big amounts of data between computers at physically different locations.
But I did expect the drive to have some sort of backup function, too, which it has not.

I would not trust this drive with any non-redundant data.

What really worries me is if this kind of issues apply to similar disks in laptops. What happens if you leave a laptop switched off for half a year, for whatever reason?