Is my SSD dead?

[grandM]

In my mini I have the original HDD and a Samsung SSD I installed 3/4 years ago. My mini booted on the SSD but the HDD still had a separate MacOS installed.

Today my mac rebooted itself. It now is on the HDD. In the Settings - boot disk the SSD is gone. In the disk edit is does not appear either. What should I do?

 

[grandM]

Think this is the fail report in console app

deleted

 

[grandM]

deleted

 

[FNH15]

In my mini I have the original HDD and a Samsung SSD I installed 3/4 years ago. My mini booted on the SSD but the HDD still had a separate MacOS installed.

Today my mac rebooted itself. It now is on the HDD. In the Settings - boot disk the SSD is gone. In the disk edit is does not appear either. What should I do?

In System Profiler -> SATA, how many disks are shown?
Could be that the SSD is indeed dead. Try checking your connections in the Mini itself.

 

[Fishrrman]

Boot from the internal HDD.

Open disk utility.

Check to see if there is a "view" menu.
If there IS one, choose "show all devices".

Look at the "list on the left".
Do you see the SSD?

If you DO NOT see it, not even "grayed out", then it's quite likely "dead".

Sometimes, an SSD will just "go dark on you" -- disappear, never to "be seen" again. This seems to be "how SSDs fail".

If you determine this to be the case, there's nothing to do but replace it.
Most likely, it cannot be "revived".

I've had two SSDs die on me in this manner.
It just... happens.

 

[CooperBox]

Boot from the internal HDD.

Open disk utility.

Check to see if there is a "view" menu.
If there IS one, choose "show all devices".

Look at the "list on the left".
Do you see the SSD?

If you DO NOT see it, not even "grayed out", then it's quite likely "dead".

Sometimes, an SSD will just "go dark on you" -- disappear, never to "be seen" again. This seems to be "how SSDs fail".

If you determine this to be the case, there's nothing to do but replace it.
Most likely, it cannot be "revived".

I've had two SSDs die on me in this manner.
It just... happens.

Good advise!
For info, the SSD's which have died on you, were they premium models, or cheap/(not-very-cheerful) brands?

 

[FNH15]

Good advise!
For info, the SSD's which have died on you, were they premium models, or cheap/(not-very-cheerful) brands?

FWIW, I’ve had internal Apple SSDs die on me, and they are very high quality indeed. It can happen, sometimes, although in my case (my old 15” 2013 Pro), it was the SSD controller that had died.

 

[grandM]

Boot from the internal HDD.

Open disk utility.

Check to see if there is a "view" menu.
If there IS one, choose "show all devices".

Look at the "list on the left".
Do you see the SSD?

If you DO NOT see it, not even "grayed out", then it's quite likely "dead".

Sometimes, an SSD will just "go dark on you" -- disappear, never to "be seen" again. This seems to be "how SSDs fail".

If you determine this to be the case, there's nothing to do but replace it.
Most likely, it cannot be "revived".

I've had two SSDs die on me in this manner.
It just... happens.

Just checked. Nothing there.

 

[grandM]

Good advise!
For info, the SSD's which have died on you, were they premium models, or cheap/(not-very-cheerful) brands?

When I am set up again I'll give you the exact specs. Was a Samsung EVO 840/830 or so. 1TB.
Think it did not last 3 years.
Guess that Apple HDD is better quality.
Scary. Lost my faith in SSD. Solves the question ever buying an all-in-one too.

 

[Populus]

Oops, my mini has an EVO 860. Did you download or stress it too much during this 4 years?

I’m a little scared now, because my belief was that when an SSD reach the read/write lifespan, it just entered a “read only” mode. Now, knowing that it can just die out of nowhere, I will try to have more backups on traditional external hard drives.

 

[ElRojito]

I have had hard drive cables cause drives to “fail.” So the cable could be bad. Otherwise yeah it’s possible the SSD died. What is the mini used for?

 

[grandM]

Oops, my mini has an EVO 860. Did you download or stress it too much during this 4 years?

I’m a little scared now, because my belief was that when an SSD reach the read/write lifespan, it just entered a “read only” mode. Now, knowing that it can just die out of nowhere, I will try to have more backups on traditional external hard drives.

I am a heavy user but honestly this is not acceptable.

 

[grandM]

I have had hard drive cables cause drives to “fail.” So the cable could be bad. Otherwise yeah it’s possible the SSD died. What is the mini used for?

Was an original cable if I recall correctly. Could be the cable of course. The 2012 mini is no longer worth the hassle but I was still copying files from the HDD to an external drive. Reached acceptable speed over the SSD. Doing so via the HDD takes forever.

Wished the SSD would revive itself...

 

[mick2]

Was an original cable if I recall correctly. Could be the cable of course. The 2012 mini is no longer worth the hassle but I was still copying files from the HDD to an external drive. Reached acceptable speed over the SSD. Doing so via the HDD takes forever.

Wished the SSD would revive itself...

Remove it and try it with a cheap usb-to-sata cable. This'll tell you if it's the drive or the cable etc.

There's nothing particularly special or 'High Quality' about Apple's SSDs - they were eg Sandisks for a while - and Samsung are usually pretty reliable. The Evo830 came out about 11 years ago - was it new when it was installed 3/4 years ago?

 

[allan.nyholm]

see if there's a new firmware for your model on Samsungs website. I was recently made aware of a firmware update to my own SSD from Samsung; via Samsung Magician on a Windows 10 install. macOS leaves its user guessing about such things.
p.s I don't know why I would suggest such a thing as updating your firmware to perhaps revive your ssd. I doubt it's going to wake up anytime soon. Or maybe it will.

you can try getting a cheap external USB housing for your SSD and install Windows 10 via Bootcamp on your internal HDD - then attach the SSD via external casing that has a proper chip on it, and see if Samsung Magician can find it.
You can use Windows for some time without registering and just use the install for this particular purpose if you don't feel like burning out a CD-Rom with firmware on it.

Or, open Mac mini and re-attach drives - just for the heck of it.. I know the process is a PITA as I've owned 2 Mac minis which I proceeded to unscrew.

 

[Psyko]

you may be in luck. I went through my YouTube favourites the other day and randomly watched a 4+ years old video on some guy who built a 70$ hackintosh.

In this video he mentioned how he scored a seemingly dead Samsung SSD that he revived, as they have some type of anomaly where they disappear from view if exposed to a power surge or drop. Video link here, around 3:10

It seems to line up well with your story. Same brand, possibly similar conditions. I hope it is enough for you to do more research rather than to pronounce the drive dead, and hopefully resurrect it!

 

[grandM]

you may be in luck. I went through my YouTube favourites the other day and randomly watched a 4+ years old video on some guy who built a 70$ hackintosh.

In this video he mentioned how he scored a seemingly dead Samsung SSD that he revived, as they have some type of anomaly where they disappear from view if exposed to a power surge or drop. Video link here, around 3:10

It seems to line up well with your story. Same brand, possibly similar conditions. I hope it is enough for you to do more research rather than to pronounce the drive dead, and hopefully resurrect it!

How do you cycle energy through it?

 

[grandM]

see if there's a new firmware for your model on Samsungs website. I was recently made aware of a firmware update to my own SSD from Samsung; via Samsung Magician on a Windows 10 install. macOS leaves its user guessing about such things.
p.s I don't know why I would suggest such a thing as updating your firmware to perhaps revive your ssd. I doubt it's going to wake up anytime soon. Or maybe it will.

you can try getting a cheap external USB housing for your SSD and install Windows 10 via Bootcamp on your internal HDD - then attach the SSD via external casing that has a proper chip on it, and see if Samsung Magician can find it.
You can use Windows for some time without registering and just use the install for this particular purpose if you don't feel like burning out a CD-Rom with firmware on it.

Or, open Mac mini and re-attach drives - just for the heck of it.. I know the process is a PITA as I've owned 2 Mac minis which I proceeded to unscrew.

I must check if I have a backup of something. I was still migrating from the HDD and had not turned time machine on. Wanted to start from a clean slate. If I put something in the cloud the SSD contents nor the SSD matters to me. In all honesty I'd prefer a 7.200 rpm over a SSD now for important files. Opening it up is quite a hassle. I certainly will not before I put the important HDD files on an external drive. The challenge is MacOS freezes on the HDD. Yesterday vlc was on full screen mode and did nothing anymore but vlc. I'd never trust the ssd anymore. After the Spring event I'll probably buy, if there is, a new mini. The 2020 actually is on sale now but comes with 8 GB RAM. I'd prefer more. Also wished apple had 2 drives installed in a mini nowadays. I still have a desktop computer now. I'll consider it though as the SSD facilitates file migration. I think it's not the cable though as I seem to remember the same cable connected the HDD and the SSD. My mini did not move an inch.

Also the HDD runs very slow now. Freezes frequently. Not sure how it'd respond to bootcamp?

 

[grandM]

Remove it and try it with a cheap usb-to-sata cable. This'll tell you if it's the drive or the cable etc.

There's nothing particularly special or 'High Quality' about Apple's SSDs - they were eg Sandisks for a while - and Samsung are usually pretty reliable. The Evo830 came out about 11 years ago - was it new when it was installed 3/4 years ago?

Not sure it was the 830. Could have been 840. I bought it brand new.

 

[grandM]

see if there's a new firmware for your model on Samsungs website. I was recently made aware of a firmware update to my own SSD from Samsung; via Samsung Magician on a Windows 10 install. macOS leaves its user guessing about such things.
p.s I don't know why I would suggest such a thing as updating your firmware to perhaps revive your ssd. I doubt it's going to wake up anytime soon. Or maybe it will.

you can try getting a cheap external USB housing for your SSD and install Windows 10 via Bootcamp on your internal HDD - then attach the SSD via external casing that has a proper chip on it, and see if Samsung Magician can find it.
You can use Windows for some time without registering and just use the install for this particular purpose if you don't feel like burning out a CD-Rom with firmware on it.

Or, open Mac mini and re-attach drives - just for the heck of it.. I know the process is a PITA as I've owned 2 Mac minis which I proceeded to unscrew.

Actually wonder if an automatic MacOS update caused this.

 

[grandM]

I want to thank everyone for helping me by the way.

 

[grandM]

you may be in luck. I went through my YouTube favourites the other day and randomly watched a 4+ years old video on some guy who built a 70$ hackintosh.

In this video he mentioned how he scored a seemingly dead Samsung SSD that he revived, as they have some type of anomaly where they disappear from view if exposed to a power surge or drop. Video link here, around 3:10

It seems to line up well with your story. Same brand, possibly similar conditions. I hope it is enough for you to do more research rather than to pronounce the drive dead, and hopefully resurrect it!

Seems going into the BIOS might revive it if it was a power surge. Unsure though. Tricky with a non apple keyboard too. Sighs. https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/why-did-ssd-disappear-from-system

What does 'reseat the drive' stand for?

 

[grandM]

If the ssd is less than 840pro apparently Magician software does not support it... https://semiconductor.samsung.com/consumer-storage/magician/

 

[Fishrrman]

The SSD is dead.
Get a replacement drive and restore from your backup.

Any "attempts at revival" (of the dead SSD) come later ... AFTER you have achieved the above objective.

 

[Psyko]

I don’t believe it’s dead, not yet anyway. I googled and a power cycle is turning it on with power, but no data connection, for thirty minutes. Turn it off for at least 30 seconds, then turn it on 30 minutes again, and back off. Google Samsung SSD power and you’ll find what I found.

If it doesn’t work in the computer, find a desktop to plug it in, or buy an external power adapter.