• How did the corruption / failure appear?
First time it happened all files on the drive had corrupted permissions, like folders with no read, or system files with write but no execute.
Second time the configuration for a bunch of apps and MacOS itself got corrupted and trying to delete the files failed.
Third time I just lost a bunch of work files after the machine had reset itself when left on over night.
Fourth time it corrupted my MEGASync folder luckily it was unable to sync the corrupted files.
• Did you see problems right away at install, or did it take a while?
Always took some time after install.
Fresh install from Monterey 12.4 / 12.5 USB disk created with apple tools. Only work/user data restored from backup, not config etc.
• Did doing something in particular aggravate the failure? Like creating or deleting APFS snapshots?
I can't pin point the time of failures but I feel like it happened overnight as in when the machine was idle.
• Did you use the drive via an ext enclosure? Which one? Did it work normally?
Internal on primary M.2 slot
• Did you try another of the same model before switching?
No, was not available and the drive wasn't actually failing. It worked fine in Linux/Windows.
• Quick system summary—What macOS version? What board plus BIOS version? Are you using NVMe fix? What version?
Monterey 12.4 -> 12.5, Gigabyte Aorus Elite DDR4 V2 Bios F3A, NVMEFix v1.1.0
Any other thoughts; patterns you noticed
I at first thought it was bad Ram, I ran pretty much every test you can and never had any faults, after the 4th reinstall I couldn't keep trouble shooting as I use this machine for work and was worries that my backups would eventually get corrupted so just swapped out for the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus.
I have had absolutely zero issues since, the Sabrent drive runs a little hotter (peaks at ~50 degC under load, compared with ~45 degC for the Kingston) and have experienced zero issues since.