Storage I think my SSD is dead

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Behemoth, 12 Jun 2012.

  1. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    Well I think ny refurbished Crucial C300 128 Gig SSD has died. I've been having issues for weeks with my PC with random lock ups, slow down, my browsers crashing and just some general slow performance in the last few days. Yesterday was the worst when my PC would boot but would take forever to load any applications such as Thunderbird when I wanted to read through my e-mails. I originally thought it was my Windows install but decided seeing as I have master image of my system on one of my external hard drives I dropped in my virtually new and unused WD 500 gig AAKS drive.

    Ran in Arcronis with my system image (that program is a life saver ) and my PC has been behaving normally.

    Decided to drop the SSD onto my laptop, and soon as I plugged it in and turned it on I would just get a blank screen on my laptop, no nothing I thought I'd bricked my laptop to begin with so then started taking it's RAM out etc, then thought hmm hang on I'll just take the SSD out again, and once it was out the laptop fired up once more.

    Going to try my luck with crucial under SGA 79 and see what I can get out of them, I know it was a refurbished drive but given I paid £92 for it not going to let them take the urine with this.

    Just wondering if anyone else would disagree with my diagnosis ?
     
  2. Pookeyhead

    Pookeyhead It's big, and it's clever.

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    Have you tried a secure erase on the SSD?

    I reckon it's dead, but I'd secure erase and try one last time to be sure.
     
  3. azrael-

    azrael- I'm special...

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    If two otherwise running systems both behave badly and the common denominator is the SSD it's plausible that it _is_ the SSD. If it walks like a duck...

    The question is, when did you buy your refurbished drive, because I believe there's only a short warranty on refurbished items. The funny thing is you could get a brand new M4 128GB for about the same you spent on that refurbished C300...
     
  4. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

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    If system won't boot with it then SSD dead. If the SSD is detected then have you flashed to most recent firmware on it?
     
  5. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    I bought it last August, I know my consumer law, warranty means jack, going to pop it into my PC over the weekend and have another crack at it. Has the latest firmware installed on it so I know it's not that. Put the latest firmware on the drive as soon as I got it.
     
  6. PocketDemon

    PocketDemon What's a Dremel?

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    After checking cables (which you've effectively done), SEing is always the first thing to try with SSDs that are misbehaving...


    Well, it's not 100% clear what OS you're using - well, it's most likely that it's 'a' version of Windows, given that it's what Acronis natively uses...

    (though you 'could' have used the recovery disk to take a linux or OSX (Hackintosh) installation from the SSD to the HDD)

    - & there's no info as to how you've been using the thing.


    Simply that, esp since the C300 wasn't famed for its GC, it 'could' be the case that you were running it in a non-trim environment &/or there was far too little free space &/or gave it too little idle time, & ground the thing to a halt.


    Anyway, i agree with Pookyhead's advice here - though i'm not quite as certain that it's dead/dying as there is this other possible cause...

    ...albeit that there's no way to know from the info given, naturally.

    (i would give Pookyhead some rep, but it won't let me)
     
  7. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    Windows 7 64 Bit HP, so it had trim supported :)

    It was used as my boot drive and main apps drive, games are kept on my 2 TB WD EARS
     
  8. PocketDemon

    PocketDemon What's a Dremel?

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    Don't get me wrong - (given that you've added that you're using Win7) i'm not saying that you *did* set stuff up wrongly (without trim working d.t. bios settings or cloning an install from a HDD & not altering things or whatever) &/or over filled it &/or didn't give enough idle time...

    ...but that it's an alternative explanation for the symptoms.


    Well, assuming it was enabled, trim isn't a magical instant cure all - all it does is let the controller know that it can delete physical pages as the data's redundant during GC which helps to speed up the recovery process to maintain speeds...

    ...but, as the pages may or may not be complete blocks (SSDs write in pages but erase in blocks), unless there's enough idle time for block combining then it's still more than possible to run a SSD into the ground - esp if there's not enough free space.

    Oh, & esp if the GC isn't great.


    SEing is also probably the first thing that Crucial would ask you if you've done so it's worth trying beforehand simply so that you can tell them that you've given it a go.
     
  9. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    SSD is totally borked, blank screens my PC, crucial have said jog on mate not doing anything and refuse to accept I have any rights at all, oh well for £92 I'm not going to take it any further just isn't worth the bother, SSD's are getting cheap enough so will wait for my birthday and see what money I have from that.
     
  10. Shirty

    Shirty W*nker! Super Moderator

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    Aye, the drive to pick up at the moment seems to be tbe Samsung 830 256GB if you can find a good deal on one. Plenty of good SSDs seem to keep cropping up in the marketplace too of course.
     
  11. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    i`ll take it off your hands for some beer money? want to show my scouts the difference between hard drives and ssd for IT badge stage 4
     
  12. narwen

    narwen narwen

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    sorry wrong forum
     
  13. Behemoth

    Behemoth Timelord in training

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    Sorry mate, it's been chucked, mainly because I stood on it to break the PCB to makrsure someone could not try and recover it in all fairness.
     

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