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High Sierra Has Killed my SSD

OwenMeasures said:
One disappointing thing, my machine was physically damaged by the engineer with a few scuffs and chips so I now have to return my machine again for the them to replace the aluminium casing.
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Glad you got it sorted out. The physical damage is surprising and unacceptable. I would be pissed.
 
I had very similar issue, mid2010 macbook pro. I upgraded to High Sierra and assuming APFS as from what I read upgrade happens automatically. It worked fine for a week, then I went to install a High Sierra update...dead. No SSD showing in disk utility - FYI, second HDD in optical bay. I pulled the drive to check on cable (had bad cable once...), it will not show via USB (with adapter). It is a Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB. I originally installed in 2014. Using Samsung Magician I was unable to see the drive either (on windows machine...I will try this with my wife's mac later today).

During the original High Sierra install the machine locked up during restart (black screen and nothing for an hour) so I did a hard shut down and start and all was good. This is something I have not seen with a mac before. Same thing happened after the High Sierra update but it did not recover this time.

I originally thought the upgrade and SSD dying issue were not related, however I am starting to wonder as I have seen a few similar reports trickling in...
 
SSDs do die and when they die, they die suddenly. At least that happened to me - twice. Backups are the only protection. Manufacturers replaced the drives (3year warranty), but there seems to be no help for data. OS install/upgrade may strain the drive bit more so it may provoke earlier failure of failing drive??? Anyway, as noted - backups are the only protection.
 
Honza1 said:
SSDs do die and when they die, they die suddenly. At least that happened to me - twice. Backups are the only protection. Manufacturers replaced the drives (3year warranty), but there seems to be no help for data. OS install/upgrade may strain the drive bit more so it may provoke earlier failure of failing drive??? Anyway, as noted - backups are the only protection.
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This is one very critical advantage of HDD spinners over SSDs. I'm probably one of the few advocates of spinner drives here but it really depends on the hardware application.

I've used HDDs that lasted for more than ten years on stationary desktop systems that ran 24/7. When they do start to fail you are often given warning signs with sudden reboots, corrupt file messages, irregular sounds from the drive, etc.. Once a spinner has completely failed if you absolutely needed critical data back you could often have it recovered by data recovery specialists. This is almost never the case for SSDs. When they are gone they're gone.

However in the age of mobile computing SSDs have so many advantages (use less power, not as prone to damage from physical bumps and shocks, smaller in size, superior performance, etc.) that the benefits out way the risks. I agree that regularly scheduled full system backups and data backups have always been important but they are now an absolute must for SDDs.
 
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Same thing happened to my wife's 2011 MacBook Air
High Sierra install went fine and she used for a day or two, then it restarted on its own and locked
When I did a restart, nothing
No matter what I did, couldn't see the drive in Disk Utility
I replaced it and did a fresh install and got her back up and running

Took her old SSD and put it in an external and my MacBook Pro wouldn't see it either
 
MacDawg wrote:
"No matter what I did, couldn't see the drive in Disk Utility
I replaced it and did a fresh install and got her back up and running
Took her old SSD and put it in an external and my MacBook Pro wouldn't see it either"

I had a similar experience with my sister's 2010 white MacBook.
I had installed a Sandisk Plus SSD into it a while back.
One day, I went to pick it up (winter and dry here), and there was a small "snap" of static between me and the computer.
I tried to boot it up and... nothing but the startup chime.
After that, the entire MB was "locked up" -- no keyboard commands (even startup commands) could be entered.

I opened it and took the drive out. then connected her cloned backup (I created and maintained that using CarbonCopyCloner).
Now -- with NO internal drive at all -- the MacBook would start and run normally.

I was able to take another SSD, then use CCC to clone the backup to the second SSD.
After installing, the MacBook is fine again.

I've tried connecting the bad SSD to my desktop Mac using a USB3/SATA dongle adapter. The Mac "sees the adapter", but no evidence that the SSD is connected to it. No response at all.

It might have been the small static shock -- or it might have been something else.

When an SSD "dies", it dies HARD!
 
I had a similar catastrophic failure of a internal SSD. I have a 2011 15" MBP that had a 3rd party SSD. I do not use it much anymore, but last week I tried to boot it and got the dreaded ? and folder.

The logic board was replaced by Apple Dec 2015 for the infamous GPU failure & the symptoms were wrong for another GPU failure. I, therefore, suspected a SSD or SATA cable problem. I booted from a external clone backup, but Disk Utility could not see the SSD. I then removed the internal SSD, placed it in external enclosure and still could not see any sign of SSD life. I then installed the original OEM HDD, cloned external backup to the HDD. Unfortunately, the MBP will probably be used less now with the slower HDD.

I agree with other posters that SSDs can fail hard without warning. SSDs require a good backup plan.
 
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Gee, after reading this forum about High Sierra problems I am scared to download it and change over on MBA early 2015. I think I will stay on El Capitan longer (without problems.)
 
madrich wrote:
"I think I will stay on El Capitan longer (without problems.)"

A pretty good strategy, in my opinion!
 
Having read through this entire thread, I see nothing beyond circumstantial evidence that there is a positive correlation between the installation of High Sierra and the failure of SSDs.

As noted above, SSDs fail.
 
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SaSaSushi said:
Having read through this entire thread, I see nothing beyond circumstantial evidence that there is a positive correlation between the installation of High Sierra and the failure of SSDs.......
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If you are looking for any public admission from Apple, all you will ever get is circumstantial evidence. If the evidence of failures crosses SSD manufacturers, and indicates an increased rate during High Sierra installation that’s a pretty positive correlation. I don’t remember any SSD failure complaints from previous OS installations but it may just be the water :rolleyes:.
 
TPadden said:
If you are looking for any public admission from Apple, all you will ever get is circumstantial evidence. If the evidence of failures crosses SSD manufacturers, and indicates an increased rate during High Sierra installation that’s a pretty positive correlation. I don’t remember any SSD failure complaints from previous OS installations but it may just be the water :rolleyes:.
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Not to change the subject, but I always believed that Mavericks destroyed my MotherBoard on my late, early 2008 MacBook Pro. At the time Apple was still supporting repairs on my model, and they replaced the MotherBoard for a reasonable fee about $300. I restored it to SnowLeopard until El Capitan came out. Later, I sold it and now have a MacBook Air with El Capitan.
 
Same issue has happened to me with my MacBook Air, got an appointment at Apple tomorrow. Surely a SSD should last longer than 2 and a half years!
 
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