Dying SSD?

kozimodo · 2022-03-04 00:02:21

Recently, there have been occasions where my SSD has been extremely slow. Most recently, I installed a handful of texlive packages that took at least 5 minutes to complete.

It is the original drive in a 2013 Macbook Air so it would not be surprising if it were dying. I checked the smartmon data and nothing is "failing" but everything is either "Pre-fail" or "Old_age". Just wondering if there might not be another explanation for before I pull the trigger on a replacement SSD.

johnraff · 2022-03-04 01:04:49

^This page might help getting some sense from SMART:

https://wiki.unraid.net/Understanding_SMART_Reports

eight.bit.al · 2022-03-04 01:41:56

If it were me, I wouldn't turn it on again until it's replacement was in hand and hooked up to run Clonezilla. Unless you have good, tested backups. Hope it works out well for you.

8bit

twoion · 2022-03-04 08:48:31

kozimodo wrote:

Recently, there have been occasions where my SSD has been extremely slow. Most recently, I installed a handful of texlive packages that took at least 5 minutes to complete.
It is the original drive in a 2013 Macbook Air so it would not be surprising if it were dying. I checked the smartmon data and nothing is "failing" but everything is either "Pre-fail" or "Old_age". Just wondering if there might not be another explanation for before I pull the trigger on a replacement SSD.

You should look at the smartctl reports (with the -x). The type (Pre-fail, Old-Age etc) is only a classification of the attribute, not the current state, so the judgement depends on the other data in the report. Info in "dmesg" output is likely to support any case for hardware failure.

HOWEVER. You should copy all data you can't afford to lose to another disk immediately (before doing anything) else, or if you already have backups, check if the backup is good. Then, you would run a long self-test on the SSD with smartctl -t long /the/disk and view the result, though, I would only take this as additional info, because: You cannot trust this SSD, get rid of it / get it replaced with a brand new one. Failure to commit data is a sure sign of problems and with SSDs you cannot afford to "wait" --- unlike spinning disks, when SSDs fail, they do so abruptly and totally or start introducing corruption into data written or read before failing totally (although that would certainly trigger some errors in "dmesg" output). They are NOT recoverable, even if you paid a company $10,000 for the attempt. About 10 years of usage sounds like a good run for a SSD.

kozimodo · 2022-03-04 14:36:08

Many thanks for all the feedback!

I have regular borg backups being made and I've now upped the frequency to every 15 minutes and am now keeping hourly snapshots as well. Aside from a couple of files, nothing on the lappy is critical and I'll plan to regularly push changes to git.

I'm currently out-of-town and can't replace the SSD but I also have a Windows work laptop that I can use should the SSD crash and burn. Definitely plan on replacing it as soon as I get home.

DeepDayze · 2022-03-04 15:04:06

There's good deals to be had on SSD's and perhaps it's a good time to replace it with a larger capacity one. New SSD's are now made with newer technology that makes them more reliable and faster.

Let us know how it all goes!

kozimodo · 2022-03-04 16:49:47

Unfortunately, aside from Apple's own SSDs, there is only one manufacturer for SSDs for Macbooks of this vintage. But the pricing is not horrible.

twoion · 2022-03-04 17:12:03

kozimodo wrote:

Unfortunately, aside from Apple's own SSDs, there is only one manufacturer for SSDs for Macbooks of this vintage. But the pricing is not horrible.

If you're in the US (you linked an US shop) perhaps you could try making use of the notorious Rossman Repair Group's services :]

kozimodo · 2022-03-04 17:20:16

Interesting and thanks for the suggestion! I had never heard of them. Messaged them about shipped SSD pricing.

DeepDayze · 2022-03-04 18:06:03

kozimodo wrote:

Unfortunately, aside from Apple's own SSDs, there is only one manufacturer for SSDs for Macbooks of this vintage. But the pricing is not horrible.

Those SSD's look like they have an mSATA connector which is an older connection type compared to newer SSD's that use M.2 keying.

beaker · 2022-03-04 18:46:33

I've had a couple of SSDs fail. In my experience they fail without any warning. Keep an eye on that SMART data...

DeepDayze · 2022-03-04 19:36:34

beaker wrote:

I've had a couple of SSDs fail. In my experience they fail without any warning. Keep an eye on that SMART data...

The only warning you may get is when you get errors trying to open a file, but the filesystem is slowly getting corrupted bit by bit due to the failure till BOOM can't even boot.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2022-03-04 19:37:13)

kozimodo · 2022-03-04 22:11:15

twoion wrote:

If you're in the US (you linked an US shop) perhaps you could try making use of the notorious Rossman Repair Group's services :]

Sadly, they don't sell just an SSD and an hours long drive to NYC for them to repair it is out of the question. They suggested protechrestore.com but I'm not sure that I trust a used SSD that I don't know the history of. I may use my wife's old SSD which has a smaller capacity but I honestly don't need that much space.

jeffreyC · 2022-03-04 22:45:27

DeepDayze wrote:

kozimodo wrote:
Unfortunately, aside from Apple's own SSDs, there is only one manufacturer for SSDs for Macbooks of this vintage. But the pricing is not horrible.
Those SSD's look like they have an mSATA connector which is an older connection type compared to newer SSD's that use M.2 keying.

Unfortunately it is a proprietary connector that matches nothing else in the world.

Apple loves to lock you in.

DeepDayze · 2022-03-05 00:22:15

jeffreyC wrote:

DeepDayze wrote:
kozimodo wrote:
Unfortunately, aside from Apple's own SSDs, there is only one manufacturer for SSDs for Macbooks of this vintage. But the pricing is not horrible.
Those SSD's look like they have an mSATA connector which is an older connection type compared to newer SSD's that use M.2 keying.
Unfortunately it is a proprietary connector that matches nothing else in the world.
Apple loves to lock you in.

Yeah they sure do and bet that maker is the one that supplied Apple with those SSDs for their older Macbooks. Can't use standard ones in those and think with newer Macs they do now use the standard M.2s

jeffreyC · 2022-03-05 00:34:50

DeepDayze wrote:

jeffreyC wrote:
DeepDayze wrote:
Those SSD's look like they have an mSATA connector which is an older connection type compared to newer SSD's that use M.2 keying.
Unfortunately it is a proprietary connector that matches nothing else in the world.
Apple loves to lock you in.
Yeah they sure do and bet that maker is the one that supplied Apple with those SSDs for their older Macbooks. Can't use standard ones in those and think with newer Macs they do now use the standard M.2s

Asus did that with the early Zenbooks, but their customers are not fanboys that will accept whatever they do like Apple customers do and soon switched to standard drives, though I have run across rumors that Asus was the contracted manufacturer for Apple in that era which may have been where they got the idea.

Last edited by jeffreyC (2022-03-05 00:35:45)

Martin · 2022-03-05 08:36:02

Dell has also played this game. Their PSU connector game was even more malicious as they used the standard PSU connector. They just rearranged the pins.

/Martin

DeepDayze · 2022-03-05 20:09:15

Martin wrote:

Dell has also played this game. Their PSU connector game was even more malicious as they used the standard PSU connector. They just rearranged the pins.
/Martin

I've seen this in some older HP/Compaq models where the PSU is an oddball shape that won't fit any standard case layout. Now they've learned to go with the flow and use standard components. Memory was another thing that companies played games with too.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2022-03-05 20:09:55)

#1 2022-03-04 00:02:21

Dying SSD?

#2 2022-03-04 01:04:49

Re: Dying SSD?

#3 2022-03-04 01:41:56

Re: Dying SSD?

#4 2022-03-04 08:48:31

Re: Dying SSD?

#5 2022-03-04 14:36:08

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#6 2022-03-04 15:04:06

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#7 2022-03-04 16:49:47

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#8 2022-03-04 17:12:03

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#9 2022-03-04 17:20:16

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#10 2022-03-04 18:06:03

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#11 2022-03-04 18:46:33

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#12 2022-03-04 19:36:34

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#13 2022-03-04 22:11:15

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#14 2022-03-04 22:45:27

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#15 2022-03-05 00:22:15

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#16 2022-03-05 00:34:50

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#17 2022-03-05 08:36:02

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#18 2022-03-05 20:09:15

Re: Dying SSD?

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