Using SMART, my SSD currently shows 400TB written. I don't know how much life is left in the SDD. So when it does stop working, I am curious to know if the only fix is a logic board replacement, and if so, what is the approximate cost to do so? Has anyone had to pay for this repair yet? Or does the computer truly become a brick, so buy a new one?
Thanks!
There is one option you can take before that day even comes.
You can purchase an external SSD and clone your internal system to it and then set that up as a boot drive. Alternatively, you could install macOS on the external drive and start fresh and either manually instal your apps and your data or use Migration Assistant. In either case, all wear and tear will be on the external drive. An additional advantage, you could make the drive as big as you want.
The latest USB based SSDs will give relatively acceptable performance at a reasonable cost. Alternatively, going with a good quality Thunderbolt 3 drive, while more expensive, will sacrifice little in performance.
Just as an example, I opted for one of the OWC Thunderbolt SSDs and it has a TBW rating of 1665 TBW or as stated in their spec, 652GB/day for 7 years.
There is one option you can take before that day even comes.
You can purchase an external SSD and clone your internal system to it and then set that up as a boot drive. Alternatively, you could install macOS on the external drive and start fresh and either manually instal your apps and your data or use Migration Assistant. In either case, all wear and tear will be on the external drive. An additional advantage, you could make the drive as big as you want.
The latest USB based SSDs will give relatively acceptable performance at a reasonable cost. Alternatively, going with a good quality Thunderbolt 3 drive, while more expensive, will sacrifice little in performance.
Just as an example, I opted for one of the OWC Thunderbolt SSDs and it has a TBW rating of 1665 TBW or as stated in their spec, 652GB/day for 7 years.
Only Apple will be able to tell you the repair cost at the time of the repair, but I'm sure it won't be cheap plus the price will likely depend upon the size the SSD as well.
We also are not sure that Apple is even reporting the health information correctly with these new SSDs. The SSDs used in the M1 Macs are different than the ones used in the Intel Macs. I know even with the SSDs in the Intel Macs that the health information doesn't quite make sense or add up. Drive manufacturers are known not to follow the standards here and have strange unknown behavior for some health attributes which makes some of those health attributes useless for assessing the health of the drive. Unfortunately the reporting of SSD health information from an NVMe SSD (especially the newer ones) are many times stored & evaluated differently than the older model SSDs which actually were programmed to alert the OS once a critical failure point was reached, but the newer NVMe SSDs don't have this feature (at least not exposed with the health information of some current SSDs).
I have seen reports that if the internal SSD is non-functional, then the laptop will become a brick because some very basic low level functionality is stored on the SSD and required for the M1 Mac to operate. Without a working internal SSD in an M1 Mac, it is not possible to even boot from an external USB drive from the reports I have seen.
You can always provide Apple with product feedback here:
You can also vote with your wallet and purchase a computer from another manufacturer.
Got it working with a Samsung T7 @ usb 3.2. Performance isn't too bad. I'll run with it for a bit and splurge for a lightning port drive in the future.
It hasn't failed yet, but one day it will. So I just want to be prepared. The maximum amount of terabytes written (TBW) isn't know, at least to me. My understanding is that the internal SSD is permanenatly attached to the logic board. So, you either replace the logic board or get a brand new machine. Would be nice to replace the SSD only.
Running of the external drive as I type this on an M1 MacBook Air.
I personally use the cloning approach to initially set it up and only use the internal drive when traveling or when I need to do updates to keep it in sync with the external.
Carbon Copy Cloner.
Note with the latest version you need to use the "legacy" clone option for a bootable system.
A "no cost" approach (except for the external drive itself of course), Install macOS on the external drive and then use Migration Assistant during the install process to copy your apps and data from your current internal install.
No one here knows or will know what the logic board will cost now or in several years from now.
If you purchase or purchased Apple Care for peace of mind, then it is covered for 3 years.
With that in mind, if it fails sometime after the standard one year warranty or three year Apple Care warrant, then you have the option to either repair or replace.
AFAIK silicon Macs rely on the internal SSD to initialize boot. So if it is kaputt, then the previously bootable external drive will fail to boot.
I am not aware of any widespread worn-out internal SSD report in these forums or anywhere else. But I am curious when and how that might manifest and what to do then. Do you have any anecdotes to share?
Are you booting externally with an M1 Mac? I didn't think that was possible. If you can, then I like your approach. As long as the performance is decent, I don't need it to be super fast.
@woodmeister50 - What cloning software do you use? Carbon Copy Cloner?
Cost to replace MacMini M1 logic board due to SSD failure
