SMART Not Supported for Factory Installed Internal SSD (model A1425)

Power down your Mac.

Be sure you are invoking Recovery with Command-R.

More recent versions of Disk Utility may have a tiny View menu. if present, use the View menu to choose "show all devices".

Then select the physical DEVICE, by its immutable manufacturer-given device-name. this is not simply the Volume, like Macintosh HD. Erase the Physical Device. if successful, the only MacOS its should offer should be the one that shipped in the box when new.

halforange wrote:

My A1425 (late 2012 MacBook Pro) could no longer accept the required security update for Microsoft 365, so I migrated to a newer MacBook and was planning to erase the A1425 and sell it for whatever it’s worth.

I doubt you can get even $50 for that laptop. And it has a very serious anomaly, which I assume you would not hide from a prospective buyer.

I used recovery mode to erase the volumes (same method I used on the 2017 MacBook Pro that I migrated to successfully) and then reinstall Catalina. The problem is that Catalina Install says that I have Smart errors. Disk Utility shows that Smart is not supported.

SMART errors derive from failing hardware.

If Disk Utility can't even run the SMART tests, then that could be another symptom of failing hardware. I have a 2010 MacBook Air also with its original internal SSD, and I can run SMART tests on it, both from Disk Utility and also from DriveDx and Techtool Pro. All three of these show some degraded lifetime remaining on that SSD. You can boot a 2012 MacBook Pro from an external drive; do you have a "clone" backup of that laptop, perhaps made with SuperDuper or CCC? If so, you could boot from the external drive, install DriveDx (or Techtool Pro) on that external, and then run the SMART tests from the external boot drive. Techtool Pro and DriveDx provide detailed information on each of the SMART parameters so you can see exactly what has failed or is failing.

I re-erased the volumes but my only format options are all variations of APFS (I chose the standard APFS each time). My A1425 has never been serviced and this is the internal SSD disk. First Aid has not found any issues. What can I do in Catalina Install or Disk Utility to resolve this issue with the factory installed internal SSD? Note that applications are not of help because there is no OS currently.

Remember that First Aid checks the file system (file catalog), which is a directory that is used to locate files and file fragments. It does not directly test the hardware, those tests are done by DriveDx (which you can get free) and to some extent, TechTool Pro.

Everything you describe (SMART problems, age of SSD and computer) point (in my opinion) to hardware problems associated with a failing SSD. I think the responsible thing to do is to recycle the device and not impose it on an innocent buyer who would not be aware of the problems with this laptop.

halforange wrote:

I was not aware of the issue until I used Erase on the “MacBookHD” volume. I was not trying to sell the computer without disclosing the issue, I was unaware. Thanks for the detailed response, but I’ll probably just dispose of the computer following local regulations.

SMART failure notices are not always catastrophic for an SSD. Unfortunately macOS takes such a failure notice seriously and can block macOS from being installed it. I thought it was only the more recent versions of macOS which prevented installation of macOS, but I guess not.

If you want to put an OS onto the internal SSD of this laptop, then you can try installing Linux Mint on it. If successful, then you could run GSmartControl to get the health information from the internal SSD (it won't contain much information since those blade style PCIe SSDs only have a few health attributes available). I would be happy to review the health report.

At least if you can show Linux Mint running on the laptop, then it will show the laptop is mostly functional except the internal SSD's failing health status. Or you may find Linux Mint is useful enough to keep using the laptop yourself or giving it to a kid.

The A1425 designation appears to correspond to a MBPro 13" Retina model 2012 and 2013.

halforange wrote:

GSmartControl shows under Attributes that Wear Level Count failed now with a value of 71 (threshold 100). I’m failing to attach the picture I took of the results. Let me know if there is anything else you’d want to see. I ran a short self-test that “Completed with unknown failure”.

It is best to "View" the report or choose the "Save" report option which you can copy & paste here.

If the forum's "Image Insertion" tool won't allow you to select a particular file, then you may need to convert it to a different image file format or reduce the image quality a bit so its file size is smaller. I'm not certain what the maximum image file size is allowed.

However, with a confirmed SMART attribute below its Threshold it will prevent macOS (at least Monterey) from installing onto this internal SSD. I don't know if any older version of macOS will allow itself to be installed or not since I've rarely seen any drive with a SMART Status of "Failed" before (more common with SSDs these days). I think Monterey was a lot more strict on this, or maybe SSDs never had a chance to really fail until after years of use.

Funny thing is my boss just handed me an old Mac the other day and its SSD had a SMART Status Failed.....and it was due to "Wear Leveling" as well. It did have 600TB written to it as well as having several hundred Reallocated Blocks so it would need to be monitored to see how fast that attribute and other attributes decline. All other attributes looked good. I am sure that SSD will be fine to use for a while especially if the system does continue to have excessing writes to it. Just curious what the RAW value for the "Data Units Written" shows (the attribute may have a slightly different name). I'm definitely going to use our old Mac to monitor how that SSD ages since all the SSDs I've personally seen (just a handful) that wear out tend to have PBs of data written to them.

You can try installing macOS 10.11 El Capitan, 10.13 High Sierra, or 10.15 Catalina to see if they care about the SMART failure status. You can try booting into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + Shift + R to attempt to access the online macOS 10.11 El Capitan online installer (or possibly 10.10 Yosemite installer). It is hard to say if those older online installers will even work. Otherwise you would need access to another Mac which is compatible with one of those older versions of macOS in order to create a bootable macOS USB installer.

• • macOS 10.15 Catalina -- model 2012 to mid-2020
  • macOS 10.13 High Sierra -- model Late-2009 to mid-2018
  • macOS 10.11 El Capitan -- model 2007 to 2015
  • macOS 11.x Big Sur -- model 2013 to mid-2021 (Big Sur may be more like Monterey for this case)

You can of course install Linux Mint on the laptop. Either to use for yourself or kids, or to show a prospective buyer the laptop is functional even if the SSD has a SMART failure status due to "Wear Leveling". Unfortunately a hardware reset of the SSD won't fix anything here if the "Wear Leveling" attribute is the only problem. It certainly won't reverse it.

steve626 wrote:

HWTech wrote:

SMART failure notices are not always catastrophic for an SSD.

Maybe you have more experience with this than I do, but I beg to differ here. I have never seen SMART failures that were not catastrophic or close (in time) to catastrophic, on HDs as well as SSDs.

The macOS "SMART Status" indicator only ever triggers once a SMART health attributes exceeds the manufacturer's expectations for a "Pre-Fail" attribute.  There are also "Old Age" or "Lifespan" attributes which usually are not configured to trigger a Failed SMART status, however, an app like DriveDx will list those attributes with a "Warning", but macOS itself will not be aware of these "Old Age" attributes reaching these limits.

There is a huge difference here between Hard Drives and SSDs.  With HDs I have only seen the macOS/Disk Utility show a "SMART Status Failed" condition one time.....maybe two twice over 20 years or so since SMART has been around. HDs usually become too slow long before the SMART status failure can ever be triggered. Generally if DriveDx reports a HD having any "Warning" or "Failing" notices, then it indicates the HD should be replaced (at least in my own personal experience).

Unfortunately with SSDs things are a bit more complicated. Usually an SSD's health needs to be manually interpreted. Apps like DriveDx can alert a user to a change in the SSD's health so that the user can then manually interpret the new health details to determine if the SSD has a serious problem, or whether to wait until the next alert to reassess.  Unfortunately most people don't really know how to interpret an SSD's health report. Even I have trouble assessing an SSD's health especially with the newer SSDs where very little health information is presented.

In my own personal experience, the majority of SSD failures are due to the SSD's controllers no longer being able to communicate with the computer. The other time where I've seen SSDs fail is after writing PBs of data to the SSD. I can only recall one maybe two times where an SSD completely failed for another reason. Of course with some of these "bad" SSD's I am resetting the SSD's hardware to factory defaults which is why I've been able to continue using "bad" SSDs without any further problems and have seen few other actual failures.

The thermal SMART warning are a warning of hardware damage that has already occurred.

That is probably accurate if the temperatures went beyond the "Critical" temperature range for too long.

Read and write errors growing beyond SMART limits are also serious, the drive has basically worn out. If the drive is trying to reallocate sectors in growing number, this is also a failing drive. SMART also warns when the drive has reached its limit on read/write cycles on the flash.

You are correct if nothing if nothing can be done to stop the errors.  However, in my personal experience performing a hardware reset of an SSD can "fix" many SSD issues.

I recently had an Apple NVMe integrated SSD in an Apple Intel USB-C laptop show write errors (Actually "Media & Data Integrity" errors).  I used a Linux utility to reset the SSD to factory defaults by using that SSD's built-in hardware secure erase feature. I was able to keep using this SSD and have not seen any more write errors since.

I have seen SSDs have trouble reallocating bad blocks which can cause some of the SSD's SMART attributes to degrade quickly & perhaps even trigger a failing status for the SSD, but that doesn't mean the SSD is actually bad. Again, I have been able to reset those SSDs which stopped the underlying problem to cause some SMART attributes to appear to degrade quickly.  The SSD's firmware assumes that bad blocks get reallocated quickly, but when they don't reallocate it can cause a SMART attribute to appear worse than it actually is.

This same hardware reset can also improve the performance of an SSD, but at the loss of any existing data on the SSD.

In my experience, SSDs with SMART errors are no longer reliable and can experience very slow performance. By not reliable, I mean that data can be lost or corrupted at any time.

Yes, if an SSD is left untreated, then that will certainly happen.

However, I have found that utilizing an SSD's built-in hardware secure erase feature will reset an SSD's internal hardware to factory defaults thereby eliminating many of the SSD problems....a Crucial tech support agent informed me of this years ago and it has worked for non-Crucial SSDs as well including Apple's own SSDs. It has been extremely rare in my personal experience for an SSD to continue having issues after such a reset. The one time where this was insufficient was due to a firmware bug, but once that SSD's firmware had been updated & another hardware reset was performed....the SSD was perfectly fine (actually we had several of this exact model SSD with the problem).

HWTech wrote:

SMART failure notices are not always catastrophic for an SSD.

Maybe you have more experience with this than I do, but I beg to differ here. I have never seen SMART failures that were not catastrophic or close (in time) to catastrophic, on HDs as well as SSDs.

The thermal SMART warning are a warning of hardware damage that has already occurred. Read and write errors growing beyond SMART limits are also serious, the drive has basically worn out. If the drive is trying to reallocate sectors in growing number, this is also a failing drive. SMART also warns when the drive has reached its limit on read/write cycles on the flash.

In my experience, SSDs with SMART errors are no longer reliable and can experience very slow performance. By not reliable, I mean that data can be lost or corrupted at any time.

In the OP's case, the computer is 13 or 14 years old.

I think Apple is actually fairly conservative about SMART errors and only shows them long past when a drive should be replaced.

If you want to put an OS onto the internal SSD of this laptop, then you can try installing Linux Mint on it. If successful, then you could run GSmartControl to get the health information from the internal SSD (it won't contain much information since those blade style PCIe SSDs only have a few health attributes available).

That sounds like an interesting project to undertake (I may even try it myself on a 16 year old MacBook Air I have that is running but has SMART errors on the SSD) but I would not recommend that a SMART-failing drive be used for anything important or to store data that has any value.

Continued...

In the OP's case, the computer is 13 or 14 years old.

I think Apple is actually fairly conservative about SMART errors and only shows them long past when a drive should be replaced.

Apple is way too conservative with SMART for HDs since I've replaced thousands of HDs with only about two of them ever actually showing an actual SMART Failed status. 

It is probably Ok for SSDs if people don't want to try & fix their SSDs with a hardware reset. Unfortunately most people don't realize a reset is possible to "fix" some SSD issues.  So far I've only encountered SSD SMART issues with Intel Macs and third party SSDs....I have yet to encounter a SMART issue with an Apple Silicon Mac's SSD which I am hoping a DFU Firmware Restore may do something similar to reset the internal SSD.

This is why I was suggesting to the OP to install Linux Mint. They can then get a copy of the SMART health report which I can analyze to see if it may be worth their time to attempt a hardware reset on their SSD.  Besides it is always a good idea to get a SMART health report both before and after the hardware reset to see if the SMART attributes are still showing signs of increased degradation. Plus I need time to decide the best way to perform this reset that would be easiest for the OP. The last time I performed such a reset the utility had some different options which I need to review again.

I believe some of the older Apple Diagnostics may have used more of the SMART health attributes to report failing drives, but Apple never did the same within macOS itself.

If you want to put an OS onto the internal SSD of this laptop, then you can try installing Linux Mint on it. If successful, then you could run GSmartControl to get the health information from the internal SSD (it won't contain much information since those blade style PCIe SSDs only have a few health attributes available).

That sounds like an interesting project to undertake (I may even try it myself on a 16 year old MacBook Air I have that is running but has SMART errors on the SSD) but I would not recommend that a SMART-failing drive be used for anything important or to store data that has any value.

If you can provide me with the complete DriveDx text report, I would be happy to look it over to see whether resetting the SSD to factory hardware defaults may be worthwhile. Either start your own public thread & I'll try to keep an eye out for it, or contact me in the Lounge/Lobby (sometimes I may only check there once a week or so).

This is the "approved method" for re-imaging your Mac when you plan to not be keeping it. Note that the macOS to be re-installed is the "shipped in the box" version, tagged only with the device serial number, NOT your Apple-ID:

What to do before you sell, give away, trade in, or recycle your Mac - Apple Support

This discussion will be here for a long time, and others may find it by searching.

I understand that this is not helpful to the current discussion, but

OWC/MacSales sells replacement SSD drives for that model MacBook Pro.

That is NOT a recommendation of a Prudent thing to do.

This obsolete MacBook Pro should be replaced with a much more modern model.

HWTech wrote:

If you can provide me with the complete DriveDx text report, I would be happy to look it over to see whether resetting the SSD to factory hardware defaults may be worthwhile. Either start your own public thread & I'll try to keep an eye out for it, or contact me in the Lounge/Lobby (sometimes I may only check there once a week or so).

Hi again. I posted the SMART and DriveDX test reports in the MacBook Air Discussions are, as my 2010 laptop is a MBA, not MBP. Here is a link: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256303963

I think it would be educational for me and other readers to see how you interpret this.