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SSD Failure

mcvaughan

mcvaughan

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 9, 2007
1,401
1,032
Houston, TX
Well, while enjoying a beautiful, sunny day here I was outside with my MBA surfing the web. I had a few other apps open at the same time like iTunes, QuickTime and Mail. Safari all of a sudden beach balls and I wait a bit until I try doing a force quit on it. After a while I still have no response and I cannot close it. So, I hold my breath while forcing a shutdown with the power button. To make a long story short, I ended up with the flashing question mark on the gray screen. Now I'm doing a remote reinstall from my MBP! :mad:

A beautiful day turned gray... :rolleyes:
 
Well, more bad news... I think my SSD has failed. After initializing the remote install from my MBP, nothing shows up for an installation destination. :mad:

I guess I'm off to the Apple store. :(
 
Oh man, that's terrible. I though SSD were supposed to be more reliable.

I do agree with your diagnosis though. There's no much that could destabilise OS X in the way you described except for a hardware failure. My XP box craps out after about 6-12months requiring reinstall, but I've never found that to be the case with OS X.
 
mcvaughan said:
Well, more bad news... I think my SSD has failed. After initializing the remote install from my MBP, nothing shows up for an installation destination. :mad:

I guess I'm off to the Apple store. :(
Click to expand...

Can you use Disk Utility from the OS X Installer to wipe the drive and have it ready to go? it may not be the answer but its saved me a couple of times.
 
well, just got back from the store. Drive is definitely toast -- does not show up in disk utility. Of course, the store had no 1.8/ssd airs in stock, so I am on a waiting list for a new one. Hopefully tomorrow. :(
 
mcvaughan said:
well, just got back from the store. Drive is definitely toast -- does not show up in disk utility. Of course, the store had no 1.8/ssd airs in stock, so I am oka waiting list for a new one. Hopefully tomorrow. :(
Click to expand...

On that note...I will wait for a MBP or a MB, not another MBA
 
Malcster said:
Your judging an entire product line on one hardware failure?

I wont buy another car, i hear one broke down once.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The MBA is a fantastic machine, and there's no reason to pass it over because of isolated failures. It's easy to get a bad one out of thousands and thousands of good ones. I look forward to getting my replacement unit.
 
mcvaughan said:
Agreed. The MBA is a fantastic machine, and there's no reason to pass it over because of isolated failures. It's easy to get a bad one out of thousands and thousands of good ones. I look forward to getting my replacement unit.
Click to expand...

+1

This is really the first time I've heard of this happening. Overall people seem to be singing the MBA's praises. And I'm stoked about getting one. Be grateful you can afford such a high end machine, period. :cool:
 
CalMin said:
Oh man, that's terrible. I though SSD were supposed to be more reliable.

I do agree with your diagnosis though. There's no much that could destabilise OS X in the way you described except for a hardware failure. My XP box craps out after about 6-12months requiring reinstall, but I've never found that to be the case with OS X.
Click to expand...

At their current state SSDs are less reliable, just as fast, and take up about the same amount of power.
 
synth3tik said:
At their current state SSDs are less reliable, just as fast, and take up about the same amount of power.
Click to expand...

Where did you hear that they are less reliable? I've heard that they're more reliable and faster at some tasks, slower at others...???
 
Chrispy88 said:
Where did you hear that they are less reliable? I've heard that they're more reliable and faster at some tasks, slower at others...???
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I'm guessing he's saying they are less reliable since they are less proven. Until they've been around longer as an OS housed drive they must be viewed cautiously. I'm not saying they won't prove to be more reliable but currently people who get an SSD based hard drive are doing so knowing they are a new technology.

That being said, as others have posted we can't judge SSD technology based on one incident. We'll see if more of these posts start to come out.
 
Malcster said:
Your judging an entire product line on one hardware failure?

I wont buy another car, i hear one broke down once.
Click to expand...

I am juding it on the fact that I had two defective machines within a 24 hour period....all I have been hearing/reading is that the machine looks good...but let me tell you about the problems it has been having....

That is why I am judging it the way I am .

Personal experience.
 
drchipinski said:
I am juding it on the fact that I had two defective machines within a 24 hour period....all I have been hearing/reading is that the machine looks good...but let me tell you about the problems it has been having....

That is why I am judging it the way I am .

Personal experience.
Click to expand...

Fair do's, i don't know your story as its not in this thread but there are good ones out there.

I thought mine had a battery issue (7 hours to charge) but it turns out it just needs a few charges/discharges to calibrate it. Its now perfect.
 
Cromulent said:
Not at all. Solid state drives are actually rated at a shorter mean time to failure than standard drives.
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This is misleading, Hard Disks and SSD's have similar MTBF's but quoted lifespans are where its at, a regular Hard Disk for example will never last long enough to reach its MTBF!

Decent Server Grade Hard disks generally last 50-70k hours, but they have an MTBF of a million hours, no point in having an MTBF that good when the drive will never last that long!

An SSD with quality flash and load levelling algorithms etc. will far outlast a regular hard drive.
 
So regarding load leveling algorithims then.

Does the drive do anything to spread the writes across the drive? ie. not repeatedly write to the same part of the drive?

Malcster said:
This is misleading, Hard Disks and SSD's have similar MTBF's but quoted lifespans are where its at, a regular Hard Disk for example will never last long enough to reach its MTBF!

Decent Server Grade Hard disks generally last 50-70k hours, but they have an MTBF of a million hours, no point in having an MTBF that good when the drive will never last that long!

An SSD with quality flash and load levelling algorithms etc. will far outlast a regular hard drive.
Click to expand...
 
Ugh. Well, no SSD shipments at one of my local Apple stores today. I was told to call back tomorrow. How frustrating! I haven't had it two weeks and I'm back to waiting, but now for a replacement. At least I have my MBP, otherwise I'd be dead in the water. I think I can only wait until Friday until I decide to either:

A. return it

or

B. suck it up and buy a 1.6/80 (might be hard knowing the speed of the SSD)

I just have this feeling that there won't be a steady supply of these any time soon.

I guess I'm back to lugging the MBP around for now (not that that's entirely awful. :))
 
mcvaughan said:
Ugh. Well, no SSD shipments at one of my local Apple stores today. I was told to call back tomorrow. How frustrating! I haven't had it two weeks and I'm back to waiting, but now for a replacement. At least I have my MBP, otherwise I'd be dead in the water. I think I can only wait until Friday until I decide to either:

A. return it

or

B. suck it up and buy a 1.6/80 (might be hard knowing the speed of the SSD)

I just have this feeling that there won't be a steady supply of these any time soon.

I guess I'm back to lugging the MBP around for now (not that that's entirely awful. :))
Click to expand...
after having the SSD you will never be happy if you dont go ssd...but you can always put an ssd drive in later for cheaper.;)
 
Cromulent said:
Not at all. Solid state drives are actually rated at a shorter mean time to failure than standard drives.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say shorter mean time to failure = less reliable. After all, that statistic is useless if it fails in a recent purchase (which can also happen to HDDs).

Current flash technology supposedly lasts over 10 years of regular use and no-one I know uses a 10 year old computer as their primary computer. :)
 
BlizzardBomb said:
Current flash technology supposedly lasts over 10 years of regular use and no-one I know uses a 10 year old computer as their primary computer. :)
Click to expand...

True, but I just revived a 9 year old iMac (Strawberry) and installed 10.3 on it. It really is amazing that it actually runs and is useable :) Kids have something they can beat on now.
 
Anomaly

CaptainCaveMann said:
+1

This is really the first time I've heard of this happening. Overall people seem to be singing the MBA's praises.
Click to expand...

I second this. I read this board religiously, mostly because I can't afford an MBA SSD (yet), and this is the FIRST time I have heard of an SSD failing. Thanks for posting, otherwise I never would have noticed this stat. Makes me all the more psyched about purchasing the SSD option!
 
BryanLyle said:
True, but I just revived a 9 year old iMac (Strawberry) and installed 10.3 on it. It really is amazing that it actually runs and is useable :) Kids have something they can beat on now.
Click to expand...

Yup, it's amazing how we don't realise that some really old computers can still perform tasks nicely. But like I said, it's likely many people don't use a computer regularly (e.g. daily) for over 10 straight years.
 
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