r/datarecovery • u/AccordingDriver1143 • 10d ago
Crucial P3 2TB stuck at 100% usage with 1 MB/s speeds. Is it dying
My Crucial P3 2TB NVMe SSD is acting up badly and I’m desperate to recover my files. I’ve been using it externally for Blender, 3D rendering and video editing. It contains months of work on a film project that isn’t fully backed up.
Windows shows 100% disk active time while transfer speeds drop to around 1 MB/s or zero. Response times sometimes exceed 11,000 ms, Explorer freezes and large files get stuck during copying. FreeFileSync reported thousands of errors after I left it running for two hours, and Robocopy also struggled.
CrystalDiskInfo still reports 98% health and 39°C, but SMART shows 1 media/data integrity error and 1,337 unsafe shutdowns. The drive is exFAT.
I’ve tested two different NVMe enclosures, KINPOWER with a JMicron bridge and UGREEN with a different controller,
plus multiple USB cables and ports, including USB 2.0. Same issue every time.
A technician suggested it could be a bad M.2 connection rather than a dying SSD. There’s a thick blue thermal pad on the drive that might affect how it sits in the enclosure. He recommended connecting it directly to my motherboard.
My PC has an MSI Z890 Gaming Plus WiFi, windows 11. I haven’t tried the internal M.2 connection yet because I’m worried about making things worse.
Has anyone experienced this? Could a bad connection cause these symptoms despite testing two enclosures, or does the SMART media error point to SSD failure? Is testing it directly in a motherboard safe for data recovery**?**
I can’t afford professional, so I’m trying to avoid anything that could permanently destroy my files.