MBA (Early 2014) SSD Coil Whine

[Macusercom]

I'm having a weird issue that not many seem to have (especially for MBAs, some MBP Retina users have reported this a while ago): When the SSD is being accessed (either writing or reading) I can hear a strange noise coming from the upper section of the keyboard. At first I thought it's the MagSafe connector or the motherboard, but it appears to be the SSD. It sounds like an HDD is being accessed though an SSD of course as no moving parts.

I have a MacBook Air 13" 128 GB Early 2014 (refurbished) with the "APPLE SSD SD0128F" SSD which appears to be SanDisk. I already went to 2 Apple Service Provider who said that this is not unusual and if they'd replace the SSD, a SanDisk one will be used again. So if it's the manufacturer (e.g. Samsung SSDs don't have this) I'm not able to get one of these.

Here you can hear the recording. There are 2 clicks in the middle where I stopped and then restarted Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Between those 2 clicks you can clearly hear that the coil whine is gone and only the background noise can be heard. After the 2nd click the coil whine starts again.

Recording: https://soundcloud.com/macusercom/macbook-air-ssd-coil-whine

So is this normal? It really annoys me and I don't know what to do as Early 2014 MBA SSDs are incredible expensive and there are no aftermarket solutions for this model

 

[motrek]

I'm having a weird issue that not many seem to have (especially for MBAs, some MBP Retina users have reported this a while ago): When the SSD is being accessed (either writing or reading) I can hear a strange noise coming from the upper section of the keyboard. At first I thought it's the MagSafe connector or the motherboard, but it appears to be the SSD. It sounds like an HDD is being accessed though an SSD of course as no moving parts.

I have a MacBook Air 13" 128 GB Early 2014 (refurbished) with the "APPLE SSD SD0128F" SSD which appears to be SanDisk. I already went to 2 Apple Service Provider who said that this is not unusual and if they'd replace the SSD, a SanDisk one will be used again. So if it's the manufacturer (e.g. Samsung SSDs don't have this) I'm not able to get one of these.

Here you can hear the recording. There are 2 clicks in the middle where I stopped and then restarted Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Between those 2 clicks you can clearly hear that the coil whine is gone and only the background noise can be heard. After the 2nd click the coil whine starts again.

Recording: https://soundcloud.com/macusercom/macbook-air-ssd-coil-whine

So is this normal? It really annoys me and I don't know what to do as Early 2014 MBA SSDs are incredible expensive and there are no aftermarket solutions for this model

Since you're the first person I've heard complain about SSD coil whine on this forum I have to assume it's not common for any of the SSDs that have shipped with MBAs. It's probably just a manufacturer irregularity with one of the analog components on the SSD or how it's attached.

Maybe the service providers have seen coil whine before but I suspect that's due to confirmation bias.

So I would say just get the replacement SSD they offer and if you still have the problem with the replacement then you can cross that bridge when you come to it. It should only take a small amount of time to back up your data, replace the drive, and restore the data.

 

[uller6]

My rMBP late 2013 15" with 1 tb ssd has the same high pitched whine when doing heavy reads or writes. I never considered it a problem, as it's almost impossible to hear unless my ear is right next to the keyboard and the room is almost silent. The drive has been working fine for years...

 

[Macusercom]

My rMBP late 2013 15" with 1 tb ssd has the same high pitched whine when doing heavy reads or writes. I never considered it a problem, as it's almost impossible to hear unless my ear is right next to the keyboard and the room is almost silent. The drive has been working fine for years...

Could you tell me which manufacturer? Mine is a SanDisk SSD and I pretty much hate it from the transistors to the NAND (coil whine and I get 350 MB/sec. read and 190 MB/sec. write...this is slow...)

 

[uller6]

Could you tell me which manufacturer? Mine is a SanDisk SSD and I pretty much hate it from the transistors to the NAND (coil whine and I get 350 MB/sec. read and 190 MB/sec. write...this is slow...)

Mine's a Samsung 1T drive. I do get ~850 MB/s read 750 MB/s write speeds though, so it's plenty fast.

 

[motrek]

Could you tell me which manufacturer? Mine is a SanDisk SSD and I pretty much hate it from the transistors to the NAND (coil whine and I get 350 MB/sec. read and 190 MB/sec. write...this is slow...)

I'm glad to have lived long enough that these numbers are considered slow.

Pray tell, what real-world thing do you do where faster bandwidth to your SSD would be noticeable by a human?

 

[Macusercom]

I'm glad to have lived long enough that these numbers are considered slow.

Pray tell, what real-world thing do you do where faster bandwidth to your SSD would be noticeable by a human?

I do need to copy a lot of data e.g. project files and for backup purposes. I have an external 512 GB SSD which is only limited by USB 3.0 and my MBA is even slower than the USB 3.0 port :/

I don't care about 500 MB+, but at least the write speed of 200 MB/sec is bad :S

 

[motrek]

I do need to copy a lot of data e.g. project files and for backup purposes. I have an external 512 GB SSD which is only limited by USB 3.0 and my MBA is even slower than the USB 3.0 port :/

I don't care about 500 MB+, but at least the write speed of 200 MB/sec is bad :S

So you're copying stuff FROM your internal drive to the external one, which means we're talking about your read speed of 350 MB/s. At that speed you can copy the entire contents of your internal drive, assuming it's full, in 6 minutes. How much faster do you need it to be?

 

[timstring]

Since you're the first person I've heard complain about SSD coil whine .../QUOTE]


This problem is all over the web and I'm having the same issue. What gives?

TS