I finally solved this problem by enabled write-caching for the SD card. My card no longer unmounts unexpectedly when changing power modes. I realize this comes with some risk of possible data loss if the card is not ejected properly.
- I right-clicked on the SD card device in device manager under Disk Drives.
- Then clicked properties
- Then went to the policies tab
- And then selected "best performance"
So far, no unexpected dismounts and no data corruption. This has also improved the performance of the device as reads and writes of large files seem to be much smoother now.
My theory is that this setting is preventing the slot from powering down while in a hibernated or suspended state.