When SSD's go pop

Uxb1

This might be of interest to you all.....

When SSD's fail unlike HDD they go virtually instantaneously with next to no warning.
This was an ex corporate laptop refurbished with a cheap SSD and sold on - it was good value and used by me as a secondary mobile computer when away from home.
I take a Macrium full disk image on day one - I ain't stupid.
Skip forward two years.......

Switch on and laptop seems very slow to boot and when up and running was extraordinary slow to respond to keyboard/mouse and seemed to be very busy doing "something" - exactly what I was unable to find out.
Virus check all OK
Then it got better/normal but sometime later totally hung/ceased working.
Once eventually rebooted tried to do a disc image - failed/hung up.
So I investigate - motherboard failure was my prime suspect. Memory test OK, disc SMART data checked line by line all normal. CHKDSK ran all OK
Ran full "crystal disk" check - computer hung/locked up during random seek test.
Rebooted - failed to get past POST - I could get into BIOS but no further: I still thought motherboard kebbabed at this point.
Took out SSD and put it in caddy and tested it on another computer - Windows reported raw and Linux reported total hardware failure.
I got a new SSD from Samsung - disc image restored, MS updates done, all back to running as normal.
I guess as the SSD failing it was mucking up Windows using swap space on the disc causing the 'hanging' mid program.

So that is fully functional SSD to total scrap in a couple of hours.
Interesting that the SMART data from the disk was normal and no reason for any concern and the the crystal disk full test was unable to determine any impending failure - other than than program failed itself.

Neil_Jones

SMART data must always be taken with a pinch of sale, it is not God's honest truth as to the state of a drive, particularly with SSDs. Mechanical drives it is slightly more reliable but even then not gospel. It's perfectly possible for a drive to report itself as fit as a butcher's dog yet still act as being on its last legs.

It was documented from the start of their introduction that SSDs only have a finite write capacity and that's it, they're toast when the cells are exhausted (they weren't particularly reliable either in the early days). Later generations have resolved this to an extent and technology makes them so more reliable, faster and able to withstand a longer life.

But of course the trade off of all this is: To get the better performance you usually sacrifice the advance warning of a drive beginning to go and it will be instantaneous, as in you'll fire it up and that's it. No Boot Device detected. Moral of the story - backup and then back up some more.

grumpycrab

Uxb1 wrote: »

When SSD's fail they go virtually instantaneously.

Yep, that's solid state electronics for you.
If you are using SSDs and don't have a real-time backup in place(e.g. Windows10 File History** is very simple to set up), do it this weekend.

** Got an old mechanical hard drive? Stick it in a caddy - connect it to the USB socket on your router - set up File History on your Windows10 computer(s) to use as a real-time backup.

John_Gray

I would go for a Disk Image as a backup, every time (and frequently!)...
Several free programs available.

almillar

Hopefully people won't fall into a false sense of security when they're all upgrading to 'faster, more reliable' SSDs. They are faster and more reliable, especially in portable roles, but they do fail. I had a Kingston A400 (?) 256GB (my newest, biggest, most expensive SSD!) fail the other month. Computer wouldn't boot - no boot OS found. In the BIOS, instead of showing as 'Kingston blah blah' it instead displayed the serial number of the drive just. Tried a Kingston recovery app but the same thing showed. With hard disk drives there's a chance of recovering some stuff but on the basis of this experience it'll go any time without warning. BACKUP!

forgotmyname

Some of the old INTEL SSD's used to have moments if you accidently powered the machine off without a safe shutdown. When you powered it back on it would be just 8GB.

Recovered a few, but all the data was lost each time.

esuhl

Yup -- I keep all my data on mechanical drives for this reason.

---

A similar issue I've come across a few times is when people use RAID mirroring, thinking that this gives them a backup. If one drive fails, it can be replaced without data loss.

However, RAID controllers tend to use proprietary standards, so if the RAID controller fails, the only way to recover the data is to replace the RAID controller with an identical brand, model, and usually identical firmware.

Johnmcl7

I've worked with a lot of hard drives and SSD's now at work and I don't see much difference in base reliability but instead SSD's have the huge advantage they're not vulnerable to impact damage. When the laptops at work used hard drives there was a fairly constant flow of failures and not unusual for drives to fail within their first month of use. The desktops on the other had very few failures comparatively even when they switched model to one that used 2.5in drives with the difference being the desktops weren't being carried about.

What's also noticeable is that hard drives that genuinely failed are usually not recoverable without going through specialist recovery companies which I find most consumers won't consider for the price.

As always with data nothing important should be stored in a single place regardless of how whether it's mechanical, solid state or how reliable it's meant to be.

acc

I run Windows on an SSD that I installed in my PC, retaining the original hard drive for data storage and keeping the old version of Windows as backup.

The comments above prompted me to change the booting sequence and confirm that the old hard drive installation can be used if necessary.

The old installation works fine, but having used the SSD since last August, I find running off the old hard drive soo slow.

SSD prices have been dropping, my Kingston A400 240 GB cost just under £40 last August, and costs under £30 now, so it may be worth holding a duplicate albeit static Windows installation on SSD as backup, particularly if using a 120 GB SSD costing under £20.

forgotmyname

Gave up with RAID, PITA to switch drives to another machine or recover data.

Tried cloning a RAID setup to a single drive and it was a nightmare. Eventually got it working but probably more by luck.

Tried all the different backup and cloning software and even the MS commandline stuff..

Really put me off using RAID in future.

harz99

Thanks OP, hadn't considered this so a job to do in very near future...