Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the X8 to use as a Time Machine drive for my 2019 16" MacBook Pro, which is equipped with 4 Thunderbolt 3/USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 ports and is running macOS 10.15.6 “Catalina”. It has been an overall bad experience. When I received the drive on June 25, 2020, I plugged it in to my MacBook (using the included cable). I immediately ran the Mac’s Disc Utility and reformatted the X8 under APFS (non-encrypted). Then I set up the X8 as Time Machine drive. It backed up 290 GB in about two hours and 45 minutes. During that first Time Machine backup, the X8 got HOT. Extremely hot. So hot I almost couldn't hold it in my hand. When the backup was complete, I attempted to eject the X8. It wouldn't eject, even after repeated tries. Eventually the "spinning beachball" appeared, and my entire machine locked up, causing me to have to forcefully shut the machine down and reboot. I let the X8 cool down, then I plugged it back in to my MacBook Pro. I copied more files separately to the X8, and deleted files from it as well. Again, it got very hot. Everything was working great, until I went to eject it. Again, attempting to eject it locked up my MacBook Pro. I have seen Micron tech support respond to a large number of the negative reviews for the X8 on Amazon. They all seem to be a boilerplate response, saying to either A: Update the USB drivers on your device, and B: Download and run the Crucial Storage Executive software, then use it to update the firmware for the X8. They also say the operating temperature of the X8 is between 0º ~ 65º Celsius (does that mean the ambient temperatures in which device will operate, or does that mean the X8 will get up to 65º Celsius (149º degrees Fahrenheit) when operating? It’s not a clear description). There is a fundamental problem with these suggestions for Mac users. First, USB drivers in macOS are part of the operating system, and the USB drivers on a Mac cannot be updated separately. Second, the Crucial Storage Executive software is written only for Windows. They do not offer a Mac version (WHY NOT??), and I do not have access to a Windows PC, so that suggestion is worthless for me as well. After using the X8 for LESS than 1 month (three weeks to be exact), I one day plugged it back into my MacBook Pro to do a follow-up Time Machine back up. Once again, the X8 got very hot. Halfway through that back up, my MacBook locked up. Again, I couldn’t properly eject the X8. After forcing a restart, the X8 is now dead. My MacBook Pro no longer recognizes it. Even the Mac Disk Utility program doesn’t recognize it. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the back of the box says to visit “crucial.com/support/x8” for support. When I attempted to visit that web page, the page doesn’t exist (404 error). I really wanted to both use and TRUST the X8 to be a reliable Time Machine back up/restore solution for my MacBook Pro. It's small, seemingly well built and sturdy. But the fact that it ran so hot, and the fact that it locked up my Mac whenever I choose to eject it didn’t boost my confidence in the reliability of the X8 as a back up/restore solution. Now that the drive has died, I’m convinced that the drive died so soon because of how hot it ran. It’s going back to Amazon for a refund. Mac users, beware.