# I guess my SSD died?



## shnootre (Nov 4, 2017)

I have a MyDigital 960GB SSD with all my sample libraries on it. 

I'd been using cheap enclosures, most recently an Inatek, and I was having problems with the drive just disappearing. I thought it was the cable, usually if I fiddled it would come back. 

I upgraded to a better enclosure, a Plugable ($40 up from $10) and it worked great. 

Until all of a sudden. No dice. First I started noticing that it was not present sometimes when I booted the computer. If I unplugged, and remounted, I could usually get it to show up. 

Then I noticed that my computer was basically going nuts when that drive was connected. Vienna Ensemble Pro would hang when loading - wouldn't get past scanning licenses. Other programs were very sluggish and strange. 

I couldn't eject the drive in the normal way. 

I tried verifying and repairing w/ the Disk Utility and I got an error: unable to mount drive. 

If I click on the drive in the Finder, I can't see any of its contents. 

Is it basically safe to assume this drive is toast? Is there anything left for me to do? I guess I should be able to install all these libraries on a replacement drive, but the pain of that (and time) is somewhat overwhelming to me. 

Looking for any advice, if it's out there!


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## Morning Coffee (Nov 4, 2017)

Laptop, desktop? Can you get into your computer and plug the SSD internally, just to check the sample drive will mount that way, so you can back it up?


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## shnootre (Nov 4, 2017)

sorry. Macbook pro. I'm using an enclosure. I have tried two different enclosures, each with different cables - I get the same result. No way to put it in a desktop, alas. 

It looks like it should still be covered by MyDigital's warranty. I've put in a request, and I'm redownloading a few libraries to my backup drive just to tide me over. Damn I should have made a backup of that whole drive!!


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## Morning Coffee (Nov 4, 2017)

I know how you feel, recently lost a drive as well, not backed up. Still, do any other drives work in the enclosure? That way you will know for sure if the enclosure is at fault or the SSD itself.


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## shnootre (Nov 4, 2017)

I don't really have any other drives to check. But I have tried this one w/ two different enclosures (and two different cables). I think it's looking pretty clear, alas...


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## synergy543 (Nov 4, 2017)

I just got the external drive case below ($40) for backing up which I'd recommend. Its USB 3.1 and handles up to 10T 3.5in drives as well as 2.5in SSDs. HGST just dropped their prices on 6T drives and you can use Carbon Copy Cloner to create dmg backups of SSDs. This way, you can store several dmg backups (including system drives) onto a single larger rust drive.

btw, Inateks are not the problem. Newer ones have good USB controller chips. One precaution you can take is to use a USB hub as buffer. I work for a company that builds these things for ATT and that's the advice the engineers have given me.

(turn ad blocker off to view link)


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## jcrosby (Nov 4, 2017)

shnootre said:


> I don't really have any other drives to check. But I have tried this one w/ two different enclosures (and two different cables). I think it's looking pretty clear, alas...


Probably, but not necessarily. I've had 3 enclosures die on me over the past 4 years. No rhyme or reason why, each one just out of the blue up and kicked the bucket, using two different machines. One of them had an SSD in it which is now in a hot swappable drive caddy and has been running like a champ for 2-ish years. The drive's fine and the cases were faulty... All different brands, some pricy some cheap... I'd really see if you can find a friend with a spare drive and test the cases. That's a time consuming fix if it urns out the cases are bad.


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## shnootre (Nov 5, 2017)

Well, the second "[email protected] I used is actually the Plugable, swapable one listed above. I will see if I can find a drive to double check, but that Plugable thing seems real solid, and I've owned it for about two weeks.


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## shnootre (Dec 17, 2017)

I don't believe this. I got a replacement drive from MyDigital, repopulated it (over weeks) with all my libraries, and now it has died again, in the same way. Finder doesn't see it, and Disk Utility can't verify or repair it. I am stunned.
I can't imagine these were two bad SSDs. What could be killing these drives?

I have been using the Pluggable enclosure as mentioned above... in a kind of nightmare state as I redownload essential libraries to my non SSD drive facing a deadline...


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## mc_deli (Dec 17, 2017)

There is a reason that the Samsung EVO series (and Crucial) are used by so many people - you just don't hear these kinds of horror stories about them.


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## shnootre (Dec 17, 2017)

mc_deli said:


> There is a reason that the Samsung EVO series (and Crucial) are used by so many people - you just don't hear these kinds of horror stories about them.



I appreciate this point. But is it really likely that this second SSD could have just been a rotten egg? I worry that there is something I'm doing that's killing these drives (though the other one worked for me for over a year). I had about 100gb free on the 960gb total. In both cases, at first the SSD would show up in finder and Disk Utility, and then, after problems started, they would not show up in finder but in DU, and then, a little while later, in neither one. I guess I should just get a Samsung, but I don't know how I ensure there's nothing wrong with my setup or what I'm doing.


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## synthpunk (Dec 17, 2017)

How much room did you have open on the drive btw, at least 10% ?

I would think you have learned a valuable lesson now. Throw it in the garbage and spend the extra 25% and get quality with 5/10 year warranty.


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## shnootre (Dec 17, 2017)

I had about 10% free. To be fair, this was and I think still is covered by MyDigital's 3-year warranty. When it died before, they replaced it. I do get the lesson...though I could still get this one replaced for free I think. Kinda hurts to plunk down $300 for an SSD round about now... but can't keep going through this.


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## storyteller (Dec 17, 2017)

shnootre said:


> I appreciate this point. But is it really likely that this second SSD could have just been a rotten egg? I worry that there is something I'm doing that's killing these drives (though the other one worked for me for over a year). I had about 100gb free on the 960gb total. In both cases, at first the SSD would show up in finder and Disk Utility, and then, after problems started, they would not show up in finder but in DU, and then, a little while later, in neither one. I guess I should just get a Samsung, but I don't know how I ensure there's nothing wrong with my setup or what I'm doing.


Do you have a UPS that regulates for brown outs? If your power sags a little bit, you might not ever notice it... but external drives - especially WD drive enclosures from what I've observed - seem to react quite adversely.


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## shnootre (Dec 24, 2017)

Just following up here. I just want to state how excellent the support I've received from MyDigital has been. Doug, my point of contact, rushed me out a new prototype drive that sucks less power from the computer, on the theory that maybe the macbook was demanding too much (even though he hadn't heard of this problem before). Also - MyDigital has been highly recommended in other parts of this forum. Not sure if this will be the solution, but I have a working SSD drive with a handwritten label and I'm feeling well taken care of.


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## chimuelo (Dec 24, 2017)

shnootre said:


> Just following up here. I just want to state how excellent the support I've received from MyDigital has been. Doug, my point of contact, rushed me out a new prototype drive that sucks less power from the computer, on the theory that maybe the macbook was demanding too much (even though he hadn't heard of this problem before). Also - MyDigital has been highly recommended in other parts of this forum. Not sure if this will be the solution, but I have a working SSD drive with a handwritten label and I'm feeling well taken care of.



Totally agree about MyDigital.
I originally bought 2 x 480s and a 128 for lean Windows 8.1 build (due to no updates allowed).
The 128GB was not passing diagnostics and they sent me a 256Gb before the RMA even arrived.
Great support, but I really am a big fan of the Phison controllers too.
New Phison 8 kicks up throughput and uses less power, produces less heat.

I could easily live off of Samsung, MyDigital and Crucial MX for years to come.


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## creativeforge (Jan 3, 2018)

If I may, I'm about to go get myself a new SSD (500GB). I'm using a Crucial MX100 512 right now for my OS (Windows 7 64). 

I have the choice between (price in CAD):

*Crucial MX300 525GB*

*Samsung EVO 850 500GB*

*Samsung EVO 850 PRO 512GB*

Any suggestion? I will use it as a samples drive. 

Cheers,

Andre


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## Quasar (Jan 3, 2018)

creativeforge said:


> If I may, I'm about to go get myself a new SSD (500GB). I'm using a Crucial MX100 512 right now for my OS (Windows 7 64).
> 
> I have the choice between (price in CAD):
> 
> ...


I'm no expert on SSD architecture, but after an OWC drive failed on me some time ago I did a fair amount of websearching, and I trust (unfairly or not) almost nothing except for the Crucial and the Samsungs you mention. I don't have the Pro, but have both an MX300 and the EVO 850 that have run flawlessly for over a year now, and I suspect you'll be fine with any of those. YMMV and all of that of course.


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## creativeforge (Jan 3, 2018)

I think the difference between the Samsung is that the Pro as a 3D NAND tech architecture just like the crucial mx300, which is considerably cheaper than the Samsung.

Thanks! I thought this would be my choice, though, however not sure if it matters that I'm using Windows 7 64. Think I'll go for the Samsung EVO.


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## synthpunk (Jan 3, 2018)

You will not have allot of write cycles so I think the Crucial should be fine. I use the MX300's for Sample drive and Evo's for boot and DAW song storage. Slightly cheaper on Amazon btw. and wtf happened to the CAD $ value. Yikes... $129 u.s on amazon.com


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## Quasar (Jan 3, 2018)

synthpunk said:


> You will not have allot of write cycles so I think the Crucial should be fine. I use the MX300's for Sample drive and Evo's for boot and DAW song storage. Slightly cheaper on Amazon btw. and wtf happened to the CAD $ value. Yikes... $129 u.s on amazon.com


Hmmm... I'm doing the opposite: MX300 for system drive, EVOs for VIs/libraries. Traditional HDD for audio content and another HDD for 2nd tier and random VIs/libraries.


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## creativeforge (Jan 3, 2018)

They didn't have the Crucial, so I got the Samsung EVO. SO I have Crucial for OS (MX100) and the EVO for samples. I started installing my libraries on the OS drive to speed things up and it really made a big difference. So having an SSD for the samples (Omnisphere and Kontakt) will be much better than a 7200RPM. I assume!


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## creativeforge (Jan 3, 2018)

Anything special with regards to *"formatting" *those drives in Windows 7 64?


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## creativeforge (Jan 5, 2018)

Windows did not seem to recognize it but it showed in the control panel computer management Disk Management. However it needed to be formatted or something.

So I installed Magician, but it didn't seem to give me anything to do except showing that ahci was not enabled and there was no interface and rapid mode not supported. Screenshot #1.





I have no idea what I needed to do if anything there. So I thought "OK, activate AHCI in BIos." So I did. So I went in the Bios and enabled AHCI. OF COURSE it didn't like it. Screenshot #2 shows the error message and my keyboard isn't responding. 






So I'm stuck. Any clue? Should I just pull the CMOS battery and start over?


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## Kony (Jan 5, 2018)

The SSD should show up in disk management - you should be able to format it from there


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## Kony (Jan 5, 2018)

I had the same problem btw - fixed it via disk management


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## creativeforge (Jan 5, 2018)

Good to know! However I can't even access my Bios, let alone anything else right now. Due to that error message that stops any access to the computer. Did this happen to you too?


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## creativeforge (Jan 5, 2018)

Kony said:


> The SSD should show up in disk management - you should be able to format it from there



Did you use Windows own formatting? I was told to use Samsung's Magician, but it doesn't seem to do anything except show info and run benchmarks.


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## creativeforge (Jan 5, 2018)

SIMPLE: 
1- unplugged computer, removed the CMOS battery, waited a minute, pu the battery back, replugged and all was back to normal.
2- I used Windows QuickFormat. All that other stuff, I don't know what it was.

Cheers!


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## Kony (Jan 5, 2018)

creativeforge said:


> Good to know! However I can't even access my Bios, let alone anything else right now. Due to that error message that stops any access to the computer. Did this happen to you too?


No, I hadn't made any BIOS changes. 


creativeforge said:


> Did you use Windows own formatting? I was told to use Samsung's Magician, but it doesn't seem to do anything except show info and run benchmarks.


This is what I was referring to - sorry I wasn't clear! Basically, I could only format the EVO via windows disk management. Not sure why Magician isn't able to....


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## creativeforge (Jan 5, 2018)

Kony said:


> No, I hadn't made any BIOS changes.
> 
> This is what I was referring to - sorry I wasn't clear! Basically, I could only format the EVO via windows disk management. Not sure why Magician isn't able to....



Thanks for your help, really appreciate!

I'm copying over only what I use, organized in themed folders. About time!

Cheers,

André


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## synthpunk (Jan 6, 2018)

welcome to 2018 Andre 



creativeforge said:


> Thanks for your help, really appreciate!
> 
> I'm copying over only what I use, organized in themed folders. About time!
> 
> ...


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