MacBook Air SSD no more working after overflow!

Question

MacBook Air SSD no more working after overflow!

This first happened to me a few years ago, on a MacBook Air 11"; Back then I though the device was too old, but it happened again on a 13" I purchased right around that time, and this time with double the storage;

Long story short, once the SSD is almost full and there are tons of tabs open on Safari, so the RAM is using Swap heavily, the power goes down, the laptop turns off and then never starts again! When restarting there is the folder option with question mark, and even in the recovery mode there is no internal storage recognized;

I believe, this is some sort of bug in the SSD or some hardware-software bridge that is causing the SSD to become dysfunctional ... because I really can't imagine the SSD burning out once it is full! Like is this chip spoused to be a single usage kind of thing? Or it's age should be less than 5 years!

So, I was wondering is there some way to recover the lost data? Is there some hard reset on the SSD, or can it be connected to a computer and somehow manage to recover some date off it?

Thanks in Advance!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 17, 2021 11:29 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

babowa

Level 9

78,580 points

Apr 17, 2021 11:38 AM in response to Captain_Husayn

It is not a bug.

You should never - and I do mean NEVER - allow your SSD (or a hard drive) to become full or almost full. In order for the hardware and the OS to function properly, you need to have an absolute minimum of 15 - 20 GB of empty space available at all times or the SSD is unable to go through with its garbage collection (one reason).

Any hard drive or SSD is a bit like a CD: any time you do anything, it is written to; when you delete something, it moves the stuff off and so it is constantly either occupying more space or making room. SSDs have a certain maximum write cycle; hard drives also have a life cycle > either can and will fail at some point. SSDs do it without warning; hard drives will usually exhibit different behavior before failing.

In either case, you should be prepared at all times with a full backup so the failure is merely an annoyance while replacing the drive.

The easiest way - at this point - would be to connect from another Mac or a bootable clone and try to access your SSD that way.

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Answer 2

Apr 18, 2021 5:35 PM in response to Captain_Husayn

SSDs can fail at any time without any warning signs. @babowa is absolutely correct that you should never let your SSD fill up completely. macOS warns you when your free storage space drops below 20GB so take that warning seriously. Besides file system issues and file corruption when any macOS drive runs out of space the APFS file system can get into a state where you will not be able to even mount the drive if it gets filled completely. If an SSD is completely filled, the SSD will begin to slow down drastically and it can even begin to cause the SSD to premature wear out.

You should always have frequent and regular backups. FYI, it is impossible to recover accidentally deleted data from an SSD after the Trash has been emptied.

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Answer 3

babowa

Level 9

78,580 points

Apr 17, 2021 12:58 PM in response to Captain_Husayn

FYI, you are not having a conversation with Apple designers or support staff - we are all other users here and do not work for Apple.

All drives/SSDs need empty space to function. Where would it write to if there wasn't any?

And, there is no way to predict how long an electronic part will last. Some last 1 - 2 years, others up to 10. SSDs purchased separately are irrelevant; you purchased the machine with the drive knowing there was a one year hardware warranty (or three years with Applecare).

As for booting from an external: if you want it to function as a bootable disk, you need to make a bootable clone of your system onto an external drive or separate partition. I have 2 bootable clones of every OS I am running scattered across several external drives/SSDs. If you have that, you can boot into it and a) keep working, or b) repair your internal disk, or c) delete data to gain space.

Regarding your other complaints, you need to address this with Apple Engineering/Designers/Legal Dept (for warranty).

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Answer 4

Apr 17, 2021 12:07 PM in response to babowa

On a note to Apple product designers: regardless of whether "bug" fits the semantic requirements or not, if something needs 20% empty space, then reserve it & call it what it is: reserve storage! or whatever; You don't sell a machine with 500GB storage and don't allocate 100GB as restricted! It's not the users job to take care of the performance of the machine; It's supposed to be functional within the parameters shipped! Ship it with 400GB storage out of the box but that it lasts at least 5 years! That's the typical warranty offer on a SSD bought separately! Apple should beat that! and yes, if I was assembling the PC myself, then I'm responsible for not overflowing the SSD, but when the comptuer is shipped by Apple and is impossible to find spare parts or replacement or anything, then it should, at least, not break because of usage!

The thing I tried, was to turn my backup HDD into a storage for the old MacBook Air, so if I connect it to this one, it boots and everything works, but what doesn't work, is that internal storage that doesn't show up; Not even via terminal commands like `diskutils` or on some third-party recovery application!

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Answer 5

Apr 17, 2021 12:59 PM in response to Captain_Husayn

Captain_Husayn wrote:

...It's not the users job to take care of the performance of the machine; ....

Say what??????

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MacBook Air SSD no more working after overflow!

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