Primary SSD failed on my computer at 4 years

[Sunset]

Years ago computers would get massively better every few years. But now they are better, but not massively so. The difference is speed of saving a few seconds doesn't seem worth the expense.

So true.
After reading about the M2 SSD things, that won't fit in my computer, I started dreaming of upgrading.
However, I only spent $350 seven years ago to build a 6 core, 12 Gig Ram machine. About a year ago I put in an SSD.

Things have not improved much if I look at spending $600 for a machine.

Frankly mine is faster than me now

 

[WestUniversity]

I’ve been pondering whether to upgrade my mid-2012 MacBook Pro to a Crucial SSD. Maybe I’ll ponder it a while longer...

 

[yorick]

I’ve been pondering whether to upgrade my mid-2012 MacBook Pro to a Crucial SSD. Maybe I’ll ponder it a while longer...

It'll give it a new lease on life. There's a world of difference between SSD and HD; just not a world of difference for consumer workloads between SATA SSD and NVMe SSD.

If you're reluctant to go with 2.5" form factor now because your next device will use M.2 internally, you could do one of these https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147681 and stick it in one of those https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6V84GH9574 . Just keep in mind that's SATA M.2, not NVMe (PCIe) M.2. All the enclosure does is make the SATA signals available on standard SATA connectors.

That's what's in my PC and XBox One X now, and I'm happy with it. Plenty of space for all my stuff, and no more waiting on a hard drive to spin the platter under the head.

 

[Sunset]

I’ve been pondering whether to upgrade my mid-2012 MacBook Pro to a Crucial SSD. Maybe I’ll ponder it a while longer...

I found putting an SSD inside an old machine, like my laptop, made it super fast.

Added benefit for a laptop is the increased durability, you can pick it up, swing it around, set it down not gently, and no worries the hard disk will crash as there is none.

 

[JoeWras]

Even though I had a failure, I can't imagine going back to disk based drives for the main partition. The SSD made a huge difference all around.

OK, I still used disk based drives for my long term backup since it is cheaper.

 

[Smitty700]

SSDs are inherently more reliable than mechanical hard drives, but one important consideration for many newer machines is that the SSDs are soldered onto the computer main board to save space, so they are not user replaceable. The result is that the reliability of SSD is tied to the reliability of the entire computer. The computer dies, and my data dies with it.

All of my computers except one have the SSDs soldered on the main board, and I am equally paranoid about backing all of them up.

 

[Sunset]

SSDs are inherently more reliable than mechanical hard drives, but one important consideration for many newer machines is that the SSDs are soldered onto the computer main board to save space, so they are not user replaceable. The result is that the reliability of SSD is tied to the reliability of the entire computer. The computer dies, and my data dies with it.

All of my computers except one have the SSDs soldered on the main board, and I am equally paranoid about backing all of them up.

Are all you computers Apple ones ?

 

[JoeWras]

SSDs are inherently more reliable than mechanical hard drives, but one important consideration for many newer machines is that the SSDs are soldered onto the computer main board to save space, so they are not user replaceable. The result is that the reliability of SSD is tied to the reliability of the entire computer. The computer dies, and my data dies with it.

All of my computers except one have the SSDs soldered on the main board, and I am equally paranoid about backing all of them up.

Are all you computers Apple ones ?

OP here. So this was the case with my computer. Soldered down. It is a generic Wintel box, not Apple.

It does have an mSATA slot that is bootable, so I recovered the computer by plugging in a 250G Samsung SSD and pointing the boot order to it. Once reinstalled, works great. Actually, faster than the original soldered down drive.

Whether I lost data from a removable or not doesn't matter. It is lost data. So backup. But your point is well taken. If something else on the computer dies, you can't get at your data that is still good on that soldered down drive!

Another downside to this soldered down drive is I now effectively have one less "slot" for a drive in this tiny desktop. Actually, I now have no extra slot. The Samsung is it.

 

[target2019]

SSDs are inherently more reliable than mechanical hard drives, but one important consideration for many newer machines is that the SSDs are soldered onto the computer main board to save space, so they are not user replaceable. The result is that the reliability of SSD is tied to the reliability of the entire computer. The computer dies, and my data dies with it.

All of my computers except one have the SSDs soldered on the main board, and I am equally paranoid about backing all of them up.

Your data may be recoverable, so long as we can boot? I'm having a problem with the design.

 

[JoeWras]

Your data may be recoverable, so long as we can boot? I'm having a problem with the design.

A lot of things can fail (CPU, bus controller) that makes the entire device not bootable in any way. When that happens, getting to that soldered down data is extremely difficult. Fixing the fault may not be possible or practical.

Other things can fail (power supply, DRAM) that are very easy to fix, but require skilled diagnosis.

Contrast to a removable drive. You just pop out the drive from the problem system, and place it in an open compatible slot in a different system and you can recover your files.

 

[target2019]

Contrast to a removable drive. You just pop out the drive from the problem system, and place it in an open compatible slot in a different system and you can recover your files.

Yes, and what of the sensitive data that remains on the SSD? With a removable I can take care of that in various ways.

 

[Sunset]

Yes, and what of the sensitive data that remains on the SSD? With a removable I can take care of that in various ways.

Of course if the computer is not repairable, you can break it open and sledge hammer the soldered hard drive.

 

[target2019]

Of course if the computer is not repairable, you can break it open and sledge hammer the soldered hard drive.

I'm not familiar with the makeup, but does that destroy all data? For example, I can hit magnetic drive with sledge, but that alone won't destroy all data on the platters.

 

[JoeWras]

I'm not familiar with the makeup, but does that destroy all data? For example, I can hit magnetic drive with sledge, but that alone won't destroy all data on the platters.

I put an angle grinder to the platters, both sides.

I grind down the chips inside the USBs.

I presume I'll grind down the chip off the board when it comes time to destroy this thing. Problem is, from the top I can't see it. It may be on the other side. And, I may not even know what chip it is, although I know it is a Foresee brand as reported by BIOS.

 

[target2019]

I remove the platters and line the firepit with them.
The grinder sounds like a necessary tool for the future.

 

[WestUniversity]

I found putting an SSD inside an old machine, like my laptop, made it super fast.

Added benefit for a laptop is the increased durability, you can pick it up, swing it around, set it down not gently, and no worries the hard disk will crash as there is none.

Okay, I have an SSD drive and a transfer cable saved to one of my Amazon lists. DW and I are about to hit the road on a trip so I will take care of that project when we get back...

 

[GrayHare]

A ramdisk for temporary files will reduce disk access, making it a nice complement to an SSD.

 

[Sunset]

I'm not familiar with the makeup, but does that destroy all data? For example, I can hit magnetic drive with sledge, but that alone won't destroy all data on the platters.

I take hard drives apart, besides making it impossible to ever read the data, they have incredible super magnets (rare earth magnets) inside. You need to get a special screwdriver at HD, then it's very easy, they hide a few screws under the label.

When throwing out the platters, I just put them on the concrete driveway and spin my foot on them a couple of times, flip and spin. Nobody is reading those.

 

[Sunset]

A ramdisk for temporary files will reduce disk access, making it a nice complement to an SSD.

I used to use a ramdisk for floppy drives and the old hard-drives, but SSD's are so fast, I never felt a need.

But having lots of memory does mean much less swapping. I have 12 Gig of ram on my desktop.

 

[target2019]

I take hard drives apart, besides making it impossible to ever read the data, they have incredible super magnets (rare earth magnets) inside. You need to get a special screwdriver at HD, then it's very easy, they hide a few screws under the label.

When throwing out the platters, I just put them on the concrete driveway and spin my foot on them a couple of times, flip and spin. Nobody is reading those.

I remove the platters and line the firepit with them.
Have an amazing set of tools from 30 years of computer support. Who else had a Mac Cracker?

 

[jim584672]

If you want to secure wipe a drive Bleachbit will overwrite the disk multiple times.

https://www.bleachbit.org/

 

[ERD50]

OP here. So this was the case with my computer. Soldered down. It is a generic Wintel box, not Apple.... .

Good to know. For my next laptop, I'll try to find out if the SSD is soldered and/or if there is a slot for a replacement drive.

I wish the environmental groups would get on manufacturers to make their devices more repairable. Maybe just provide a scorecard, and maybe pre-pay a recycle fee based on that scorecard? So OK, if you really want/need a super-slim lightweight laptop, you pay for the advantages of the soldered down parts. But for many of us, the tiny bit of extra size/weight is not an issue. I'd prefer user replaceable memory, storage, battery, keyboard - and accept it isn't the latest/greatest/sexiest.

-ERD50

 

[Smitty700]

Are all you computers Apple ones ?

Mine are all Apple. With the exception of one older Mac Mini, all have the SSDs soldered down.

I believe the practice of soldering SSDs has bled over to PCs as well, especially in the smaller form factors like the Microsoft Surface tablets.

 

[Smitty700]

I wish the environmental groups would get on manufacturers to make their devices more repairable.
-ERD50

I agree that devices should be more repairable.

SSDs are excellent in terms of life cycle and reliability. Where the repairability problems cause the most issues is with lithium ion batteries. Most have a life cycle of about 1000 full recharge cycles. So if you do a full discharge / charge cycle every day, your device is spec'd to go bad within three years. And it is most likely designed to be not user serviceable.

 

[steelyman]

I made a note (actually, a reminder on a “to-do” app) to check my HDD (2) and SSD drives’ health on a regular basis.

Today the reminder popped up and my plan is to check two things on each: SMART status and a “quick test”, which I am guessing is for filesystem integrity. I’m hoping that’s enough to identify potential errors.

My external drives support thorough read/write checks but that could be overkill and definitely lengthy to complete. The above-mentioned checks completed successfully so I’ll skip the thorough check and repeat the process in 3 months.