Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Have you experienced SSD failure on 2012 MBA?


  • Total voters
    101

Mr Rabbit

macrumors 6502a
May 13, 2013
638
5
'merica

I'm not sure. I'm the admin for 150~ Macs but I don't track internal component manufacturers and whatnot. I just recall that the majority are 128GB (some 256/512) that were ordered over the past year. Off the top of my head I think we have roughly 15-20. Only problem I've seen so far was a loose bottom case.

----------

Does Apple swap out the SSD or do they actually give you a new MBA?

Surely they'd swap out the SSD. A whole new MacBook Air would be terribly wasteful.

With that said, if the Mac was only a week or two old then they'd likely replace the whole machine since a repair that early on would leave a somewhat bad impression.
 

HarryWarden

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2012
608
121
Would swapping out the SSD be a quick repair where if you had it done at your local Apple store, you could get it back same day?
 

cyber16

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2013
487
28
If they had the part, the swap can be done within minutes.
Takes about 5 minutes ;)
But then of course they want to run their test
 

okatomy

macrumors newbie
Sep 8, 2013
7
0
my toshiba now too failed some days ago.

it wasnt recognized at all anymore.

they ran a quick test at the genius bar that showed red X on the SSD part.

they had to order a replacement part, they didnt have them in stock.

they let me choose between toshiba and samsung (i have the 128GB)

of course i happily took samsung.

when the ssd arrived some days later they called me into the store, the repair and setup of osx was done by them within 2 hours.

now samsung SSD owner :)
 

tey112

macrumors member
Mar 30, 2011
64
0
...Unfortunately they all seem to happen within 12-13 months of usage...

The first-buyers are around 15 months old now since the 2012 was released in June of 2012 and everyone else has a "younger" mba. It could be that it was something wrong with the earlier SSDs that was fixed or this could just be the start of many more failures.
 

Jimbo47

macrumors 6502a
Jun 21, 2010
728
3
The first-buyers are around 15 months old now since the 2012 was released in June of 2012 and everyone else has a "younger" mba. It could be that it was something wrong with the earlier SSDs that was fixed or this could just be the start of many more failures.

I would say around half of the reports I've read mentioned how their MBA warranty just ended (or was about to end) a few weeks before it died, which is where I got the 12-13 months from.
 

dliu

macrumors newbie
May 8, 2010
10
0
Had my Macbook Air mid-2012, Toshiba 128gb SSD fail on me yesterday morning. Brought it into the store in the afternoon with appointment, had the diagnostic run which resulted in the red X on the SSD not being recognized or something along those lines. Left it there to get the SSD replaced, picked it up again today with a new 128gb Toshiba SSD again.

My Air is about 1 year 16 days old.


No idea if this update https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1583234/ was installed previously or had any effect on the fail, but it seems to be installed now based on the Revision number in system information.

A little worried that this may happen again, especially since my warranty is now over and I did not know about the "frequent" (forums, of course) occurrence of Toshiba 128gb SSD failures... Here's to hoping it doesn't happen again.
 

SusanK

macrumors 68000
Oct 9, 2012
1,676
2,655
iTunes update?

Hi, I just did the iTunes update. Is it part of that? My MBA was updated to 10.8.5 a few days ago. My MBA has the feared Toshiba 128 SSD. Fingers crossed that it either fails during the warranty or survives a respectable period of time after one year warranty expires.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,132
15,595
California
Hi, I just did the iTunes update. Is it part of that? My MBA was updated to 10.8.5 a few days ago. My MBA has the feared Toshiba 128 SSD. Fingers crossed that it either fails during the warranty or survives a respectable period of time after one year warranty expires.

No, the firmware update is separate. If you have installed all software updates, you have the FW update.
 

tigres

macrumors 601
Aug 31, 2007
4,213
1,326
Land of the Free-Waiting for Term Limits
Had a maxed out 2012 that failed 2 times.
They exchanged with a 2013 maxed out. No issues since.

They were going to replace the ssd at the cost of 1100 for a 512 I asked for a new unit; they complied no question asked.

Still happy with their service and love the air, have had every iteration.
 

riverpoet

macrumors member
Jan 6, 2008
30
3
Just found this thread, very interesting.

My 2012 11" 128GB MBA SSD died in late July.

It was quite weird, actually. Windows 7 (Bootcamp partition) run inside Parallels 7 suddenly freezed, Finder also freezed I was able to use Cmd+Tab to move between apps and also use apps, but decided to shut down it forcefully (via power button).

It would not boot again (blinking question mark at boot). Internet recovery saw the SSD. I ran Ubuntu Live via USB stick and found out the master boot record was lost. I was able to restore the OSX partition via testdisk and run it through Disk Warrior (used dd to make an image of partition and mounted it on iMac...), but could recover only about 200 files...

So I tried reinstalling OSX, went ok. Then, when I was importing e-mails from older Time Machine backup, it freezed again. After shutdown, Disk Utility no longer saw the SSD.

Took it to authorized Apple Service here and got it back with new SSD in 24h, couldn't believe the great service.

To make matters worse, the OCZ Agility 4 SSD in my iMac died without warning just two days after the MBA SSD died! Luckily had a spare Vertex 4 at hand, so I was up and running in 4 hours.

SSDs don't seem reliable, backup is crucial... In last 2 years, I've had 3 SSD failures in 2 computers.
 

netsped

macrumors 6502
Jul 8, 2008
305
414
Yes, mine failed in late July... 2 days after the warranty expired.

I managed to get help from Apple and got it replaced for free.

I'm reading all the recent threads and I'm starting to make the idea that it's just a matter of time before it fails again.

It was the 128 GB Toshiba, it was replaced by one that is exactly the same... I just can hope that Apple recognizes this as a problem with this model and extends the warranty of the SSD on all Mid-2012 MBAs.

In this thread I shared the problem and the solution.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1615191/
 

Saturn1217

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 28, 2008
1,270
846
Yes, mine failed in late July... 2 days after the warranty expired.

I managed to get help from Apple and got it replaced for free.

I'm reading all the recent threads and I'm starting to make the idea that it's just a matter of time before it fails again.

It was the 128 GB Toshiba, it was replaced by one that is exactly the same... I just can hope that Apple recognizes this as a problem with this model and extends the warranty of the SSD on all Mid-2012 MBAs.

In this thread I shared the problem and the solution.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1615191/

Thanks for participating in the poll and really glad to hear that Apple took care of you. It is still a bit concerning that Apple doesn't seem to acknowledge this as a common problem (yet?).

My sister has just received my old 2012 MBA. It has a Samsung drive in it but I still spent about 20 minutes lecturing her on the importance of daily backups. Seems like you can never be too careful.
 

Organichu

macrumors newbie
Sep 29, 2007
14
0
Assuming you're out of Applecare- I know I am- is the OWC Aura 'the' replacement chip? The directions look straightforward.

I wonder if this will increase or decrease the resale value.
 

SavageBob

macrumors newbie
Jun 19, 2012
7
0
128 toshiba failure after 15 months

.....about a week ago, and no AppleCare. Apple said the replacement SSD was "constrained" and could possibly be available the next day or November no telling.

Maybe it's constrained because so many of the damned things are failing. I went the OWC route. Replacement is very easy and works fine.
 
Last edited:

clyde2801

macrumors 601
Assuming you're out of Applecare- I know I am- is the OWC Aura 'the' replacement chip? The directions look straightforward.

I wonder if this will increase or decrease the resale value.

It would increase the value over stock for the informed buyer. The uninformed buyer wouldn't know and wouldn't care, except the OWC drives typically have a bit less storage than their stock counterparts.
 

flowrider

macrumors 604
Nov 23, 2012
7,228
2,952
^^^^I respectfully disagree. Any (most likely a non techie) future buyer, after being told that a part failed (a very important part at that) and had to be replaced, and the owner used a non Apple part, IMHO would be scared away. And if they weren't would be willing to pay less for a machine that had never had a failure of any kind.

Lou
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.