Is the 128GB SSD prone to failing? I ask because I woke up this morning to turn on my MBA to be welcomed by a flashing folder with question mark. Booted to disk utility, couldn't even see my drive. Went to Apple Store to have it checked out and sure enough the drive failed and doesn't even register. The MBA is 2 years old, I find this to be strange seeing as it's a SSD. I've had standard drives in laptops for years with not a single failure or issue.
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128GB SSD - Hard Drive Failure?
- Thread starter segrobja
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Considering that there are no moving parts like the old style hard drives, it is less prone to failing. Everything will fail, even a SSD.
You can get Apple to give you a new drive or look on eBay (or similar) to find people with SSDs for sale.
everyone thinks SSDs are so great, but turn your computer off for 3 to 12 months or 18 months or so, and your data is totally gone
That is not so. I just removed an MacBook Air 13 that had not been used for over a year and it booted right up with no loss of memory. OS was good along with a BootCamp partition and Windows 7 Pro. Everything was perfect except both OSX and Windows wanted to be updated.
I will take an SSD any day for dependability!
Why would you think that?
https://www.apple.com/support/macbookair-flashdrive/
There was a bunch of these that were subject to a recall from Apple. Looks like yours falls in the date range perhaps.
please do not doubt me.
SSD drives suffer from data retention problems when they are powered down.
here i an article saying nothing to worry about
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
here is an endurance test by the tech repot that states by 18 months all their SSD drives were erased
http://techreport.com/discussion/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead
this is what dell guaranteed back in 2011
6. I have unplugged my SSD drive and put it into storage. How long can I expect the drive to retain my data without needing to plug the drive back in?
It depends on the how much the flash has been used (P/E cycle used), type of flash, and storage temperature. In MLC and SLC, this can be as low as 3 months and best case can be more than 10 years. The retention is highly dependent on temperature and workload.
Samsng only warranties your data for 3 moths if you put the drive into storage
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ung_SSD_840_PRO_Series_Data_Sheet_rev_1_2.pdf
it clearly says
For enterprise applications, 5 years limited warranty assumes a maximum average workload of 40GB/day (calculated based on host writes and on the industry standard of 3-month data retention). Workloads in excess of 40GB/day are not covered under warranty.
when samsung says "3 month industry standard data retention warranty" could someone please explain what that means??
you unplug an ssd and you put it in storage, you risking losing your data.
it may not happen , but it may happen.
when you go to a 7-eleven store and spend $1 for a fantasy 5 ticket, you may win $50,000 or you may not win $50,000. its the same way when you store your ssd with no power. sometimes you will win sometimes you will not. and if samsung is telling people you won't win, then i wouldn't try
the reason why your laptops probably survived being unplugged was because the battery is keeping the SMC controller and parts of ram and parts of the motherboard powered on, and who knows. maybe that as enough to keep your data alive
part of the ATX pc standard was to move the power switch from the power supply itself to a jumper on the mother board, and to the case . because of this and "plug and play" ATX boards are always to some extent powered on, even thought they are "turned off". a lot of products that you buy feature "zombie voltage" or whatever they call it. and your computer does to.
"turned off" as i define it, is the SSD drive is physically removed from the computer , or the computer is unplugged from it's AC power, or it is physically unplugged from it's laptop battery, and all left over voltages in the capacitors in the computer's motherboard are drained to 0
SSD drives suffer from data retention problems when they are powered down.
here i an article saying nothing to worry about
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention
here is an endurance test by the tech repot that states by 18 months all their SSD drives were erased
http://techreport.com/discussion/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead
this is what dell guaranteed back in 2011
6. I have unplugged my SSD drive and put it into storage. How long can I expect the drive to retain my data without needing to plug the drive back in?
It depends on the how much the flash has been used (P/E cycle used), type of flash, and storage temperature. In MLC and SLC, this can be as low as 3 months and best case can be more than 10 years. The retention is highly dependent on temperature and workload.
Samsng only warranties your data for 3 moths if you put the drive into storage
http://www.samsung.com/global/busin...ung_SSD_840_PRO_Series_Data_Sheet_rev_1_2.pdf
it clearly says
For enterprise applications, 5 years limited warranty assumes a maximum average workload of 40GB/day (calculated based on host writes and on the industry standard of 3-month data retention). Workloads in excess of 40GB/day are not covered under warranty.
when samsung says "3 month industry standard data retention warranty" could someone please explain what that means??
you unplug an ssd and you put it in storage, you risking losing your data.
it may not happen , but it may happen.
when you go to a 7-eleven store and spend $1 for a fantasy 5 ticket, you may win $50,000 or you may not win $50,000. its the same way when you store your ssd with no power. sometimes you will win sometimes you will not. and if samsung is telling people you won't win, then i wouldn't try
the reason why your laptops probably survived being unplugged was because the battery is keeping the SMC controller and parts of ram and parts of the motherboard powered on, and who knows. maybe that as enough to keep your data alive
part of the ATX pc standard was to move the power switch from the power supply itself to a jumper on the mother board, and to the case . because of this and "plug and play" ATX boards are always to some extent powered on, even thought they are "turned off". a lot of products that you buy feature "zombie voltage" or whatever they call it. and your computer does to.
"turned off" as i define it, is the SSD drive is physically removed from the computer , or the computer is unplugged from it's AC power, or it is physically unplugged from it's laptop battery, and all left over voltages in the capacitors in the computer's motherboard are drained to 0
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once i was on apple rumors and i was telling someone to clear their Smc controller.
i told them to unplug your computer and press the power button for 2 seconds.
someone wrote back and got really mad at me, because this was "not the apple way" because on the website says
you should unplug the computer and wait 45 seconds.
if someones going to stick up for what apple officially says on there website and get mad at me for saying different,
then i will say samsung clearly says they only warranty your data for 3 months when the power is off, and get you all upset.
if data retention is not an issue, then why doesn't samsung stand behind their products ?
if you say there is nothing to worry about and your data on a SSD is safe, then don't tell me about it talk to the hand. you go tell samsung, dell, tech report, andadtech , and all these websties and you tell them you want their web pages taken down, because they are not true
smirk
i told them to unplug your computer and press the power button for 2 seconds.
someone wrote back and got really mad at me, because this was "not the apple way" because on the website says
you should unplug the computer and wait 45 seconds.
if someones going to stick up for what apple officially says on there website and get mad at me for saying different,
then i will say samsung clearly says they only warranty your data for 3 months when the power is off, and get you all upset.
if data retention is not an issue, then why doesn't samsung stand behind their products ?
if you say there is nothing to worry about and your data on a SSD is safe, then don't tell me about it talk to the hand. you go tell samsung, dell, tech report, andadtech , and all these websties and you tell them you want their web pages taken down, because they are not true
smirk
personally i think its more worth while to worry about people who use "hybrid hard drives" in usb enclosures.
usb is only rated for 500ma. the average Hybrid drive wants more power. and if you this, the Hyrbrid drive
goes into a panic and starts making chirping noises, and it can't spin up, and spinning up is vital to cooling the unit down. and your hard disk starts to overheat.
the hybrid hard drive can't get "extra power" from a mac book pro's usb port, if it does not ask for it.
so it just sits there going beep beep beep beep beep beep until you unplug it and plug it back in a few times to coax it into spinning up.
i've had this happen to me with 3 seagate samples and i almost burned by hand.
usb is only rated for 500ma. the average Hybrid drive wants more power. and if you this, the Hyrbrid drive
goes into a panic and starts making chirping noises, and it can't spin up, and spinning up is vital to cooling the unit down. and your hard disk starts to overheat.
the hybrid hard drive can't get "extra power" from a mac book pro's usb port, if it does not ask for it.
so it just sits there going beep beep beep beep beep beep until you unplug it and plug it back in a few times to coax it into spinning up.
i've had this happen to me with 3 seagate samples and i almost burned by hand.