So my replacement Crucial TForce SSD on my NUC died after about a year and a half of use. Not detected any more internally. In an external enclosure, it is detected but then the formatting process causes a complete lock-up of the formatting program and never finishes.
In any case, I bought a replacement for the replacement and the fun happened when I went to open up the NUC to put it into the spot where the failed NVMe drive was. All good until I dropped the screw. After a little bit of shaking it slid into a spot where I could get it, but then I dropped the screw again. This time I could hear it rattling for a while whenever I moved the case, but eventually no matter how hard I shook the case it wouldn’t rattle.
So rather than take apart the entire system to see where the screw had gotten wedged, I decided to put it back together and use the SSD heat sinks to hold the NVMe in place. So far, so good. But there is a loose screw in my server right now. That is all.