Is my SSD dead? (help!)

[iLidz]

I'm hoping someone can help me with this.

First a little background, I have an Intel 510 SSD 120gb. I did the DIY install into my 2011 27" imac. I did a clean install of Lion on 7/23. Since then I have had the drive give me trouble upon start up 3 times. I get a gray bar at the bottom of the white boot up screen that only fills maybe 20% of the bar before shutting the machine down automatically. That's 3 times in 3 weeks!

Lucky for me I kept my 1tb HDD with Snow Leopard in the machine. I am able to boot up in SL and try to verify/repair the SSD with disc utility but am not successful at verify or repair. Screenshots:

At this point I have been able to erase the disc and reinstall Lion. I have done this twice now but today my problem was a little different. Again no boot up into Lion. Ran disc utility and got this:

I don't know if this is a hardware problem or is it something caused by software....? None of the instances were able to be repaired by disc utility, an erase and new OS install were required.

I'm afraid my SSD is toast! Is there any other troubleshooting I should do before sending it to Intel? I'm really hoping I don't have to send it in for warranty.....

 

[alex1913]

Your could have problems...Soon

I'd back up as much as you can, then call Apple or go to a Genius Bar immediately. I don't think It will cause an immediate problems, but it could go bad soon. Apple should cover it.

 

[iLidz]

I'd back up as much as you can, then call Apple or go to a Genius Bar immediately. I don't think It will cause an immediate problems, but it could go bad soon. Apple should cover it.

Thanks but this is a third party SSD from Intel, not covered by Apple Care.....

 

[iSayuSay]

Thanks but this is a third party SSD from Intel, not covered by Apple Care.....

Agreed. At least you have to remove the SSD again if you want to bring it to Genius Bar. But then again, the problem seems to be caused by SSD, not the iMac.

Maybe you should try to install Lion on standard HDD (I hope you didn't swap that too?) .. and see if problem persist. If it's not, well everything is going to be much simpler.

Remove SSD, claim your SSD warranty and then put it back again on your iMac.

 

[iLidz]

Agreed. At least you have to remove the SSD again if you want to bring it to Genius Bar. But then again, the problem seems to be caused by SSD, not the iMac.

Maybe you should try to install Lion on standard HDD (I hope you didn't swap that too?) .. and see if problem persist. If it's not, well everything is going to be much simpler.

Remove SSD, claim your SSD warranty and then put it back again on your iMac.

Yeah, the only problem I'm having is with the SSD. I can boot snow leopard from my oem HDD and everything else with the imac is A-OK. I still don't see any reason to visit a genius bar. Will they even help me with 3rd party hardware....?

I was thinking of making a partition for lion on me oem HDD and seeing what happens. I guess the SSD must come out. The only reason I hesitate is because if I erase the SSD and verify the disc everything seems OK.... That's why I was kind of hoping the issue was being caused by something else. It doesn't seem like a total failure of the drive, unless this is an anomaly of disc utility with SSDs.....?

 

[treestar]

There is no anomaly with Disk Utility.

The Intel 510 series has received a lot of bad reports on these forums. Most cannot get them to work right. Nobody really knows why. Some think it's the SATA cables, some say its the SATA controllers. Some say it's drive firmware. Some say it's the drive controllers. YMMV but it looks like it hasn't.

Boot off the HDD. Reformat the SSD. Use it for storage and pagefiling. See what happens. Maybe take a chance again. I didn't roll the dice with the 510. It's nothing like the previous Intel SSDs. It is using an out-of-house controller. I'd try to return it or sell it. Get something with a better track record. Steer clear of SLC based drives.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Yeah, the only problem I'm having is with the SSD. I can boot snow leopard from my oem HDD and everything else with the imac is A-OK. I still don't see any reason to visit a genius bar. Will they even help me with 3rd party hardware....?

I was thinking of making a partition for lion on me oem HDD and seeing what happens. I guess the SSD must come out. The only reason I hesitate is because if I erase the SSD and verify the disc everything seems OK.... That's why I was kind of hoping the issue was being caused by something else. It doesn't seem like a total failure of the drive, unless this is an anomaly of disc utility with SSDs.....?

I would suggest try running DiskWarrior on the SSD. DiskWarrior can fix things that disk utility is not able to. I find DiskWarrior to be a indispensable third party app. I have been using since Jaguar 10.2.

 

[iLidz]

There is no anomaly with Disk Utility.

The Intel 510 series has received a lot of bad reports on these forums. Most cannot get them to work right. Nobody really knows why. Some think it's the SATA cables, some say its the SATA controllers. Some say it's drive firmware. Some say it's the drive controllers. YMMV but it looks like it hasn't.

Boot off the HDD. Reformat the SSD. Use it for storage and pagefiling. See what happens. Maybe take a chance again. I didn't roll the dice with the 510. It's nothing like the previous Intel SSDs. It is using an out-of-house controller. I'd try to return it or sell it. Get something with a better track record. Steer clear of SLC based drives.

After spending some time researching on google, this is the conclusion i have come to. I'm really hoping it's a firmware or controller issue, i guess that's better than a complete drive failure. Perhaps a FW update will fix the problem in the not so distant future. I wish I would have learned all this before getting the Intel, oh well OWC just a phone call away I guess....

Thanks for all the info folks!

 

[Stan Mikulenka]

Hi iLidz,
it's most likely faulty SSD, just exchange it & try your luck with the exchanged one...
For your info I'm using 3 SSDs (2 in my Macs & 1 in my workstation PC) and never had any problems in the 6 ~ 12 months time period I've been using them.

 

[iLidz]

Hi iLidz,
it's most likely faulty SSD, just exchange it & try your luck with the exchanged one...
For your info I'm using 3 SSDs (2 in my Macs & 1 in my workstation PC) and never had any problems in the 6 ~ 12 months time period I've been using them.

Thanks for the feedback. Just curious which SSDs are you using and at what interface are they wired? (sata 2, data 3, etc) The more I look into the issue the more I think it's related to Intel's controller not playing nice with 's sata 3 interface.... I'm hoping the 10.7.1 update will help, i guess we will see....

 

[Jurpl]

Thanks for the feedback. Just curious which SSDs are you using and at what interface are they wired? (sata 2, data 3, etc) The more I look into the issue the more I think it's related to Intel's controller not playing nice with 's sata 3 interface.... I'm hoping the 10.7.1 update will help, i guess we will see....

I have exactly the same config, no problems for me.I think the drive is just faulty get a new one and try again