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[Ocelot4894]

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[C2dan88]

10 minutes ago, Clawkikker said:

I regularly switch between 2 m.2 drives

Why? Either upgrade your motherboard to one with two m.2 slots or use external usb-c m.2 enclosure?

[Alex Atkin UK]

11 minutes ago, Clawkikker said:

I regularly switch between 2 m.2 drives and was wondering how many plug and unplugs the connector is rated for. I have been doing it for around a year now and everything seems fine, but I just want to make sure it won't break soon.

From what I can find its somewhere around 60 insertion cycles.

[mariushm]

Amphenol (FCI) - one of the big connector companies - rates their standard m.2 connectors for 25-60 insertion cycles : https://cdn.amphenol-cs.com/media/wysiwyg/files/documentation/datasheet/ssio/ssio_pcie_m2.pdf

They rate the vertical connectors (ex. used for wifi cards on the io shield) for up to 5000 insertions but with those there's equal pressure on both sides, in horizontal ones you also introduce the spring like tension and uneven pins complicating things.

 

AdamTech rates theirs for min. 60 insertion cycles : https://app.adam-tech.com/products/download/data_sheet/239680/m2-a1-67-r-smt-x-xx-ka-tr-data-sheet.pdf

 

ATTEND also rates them at 60 cycles : https://www.attend.com.tw/data/download/file/123A-58X01_Spec.pdf

 

Yamaichi gives only 25 cycles : https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/Yamaichi/CNU027S-067-2001-VE_Automotive.pdf

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

14 minutes ago, Clawkikker said:

I regularly switch between 2 m.2 drives and was wondering how many plug and unplugs the connector is rated for. I have been doing it for around a year now and everything seems fine, but I just want to make sure it won't break soon.

Yeah it would definitely be better idea to get something like https://www.icydock.com/knowledge.php?id=70 and use an M.2 to Oculink adapter on the motherboard.

[Spotty]

19 minutes ago, Clawkikker said:

I regularly switch between 2 m.2 drives

Why do you switch between the drives?

If your motherboard doesn't have enough M.2 slots then buy a PCIe M.2 card. They cost around $15 and will give you an additional M.2 slot.

https://www.newegg.com/sabrent-ec-pcie-m-2-port-into-one-pcie-x4/p/0VN-0036-00093?

(Note: That will only work with NVMe M.2 drives, and your system may not be able to boot from that drive so I wouldn't recommend it for an OS drive)

Edited March 29, 2023 by Spotty

[terroralpha]

i got a computer in the office that i use exclusively for cloning M.2 drives. it's a ryzen 1700x system with some asus board, i don't recall the model. both m.2 slots on it had M.2 drives inserted into them at least 500 times over the years. still works fine.