Mac Mini (Mtn Lion) issues

Hello,

I have a Mac Mini Server (2009) that had both HDDs fail some time ago. When I opened it up, I gave it a new SSD and a new HDD.

I used it just fine for about a year. The thing started acting "funny" like only being able to boot it by holding option and going to the main volume (SSD) and then would work fine. But if I restarted, it would just grey-screen and lock there forever. The only way to boot ti was to option-boot into it, then it worked fine.

Well, I bit the bullet and spent $150 thinking that maybe after a year my SSD had gone bad. A new SSD arrived, and I did a clean install (used the method of making a bootable USB and installed MTN straight from that, not doing the upgrade from snow leopard to lion to mtn lion.

it worked great for about 3 days.

Today, When I turn it on, it starts to boot, goes to the silver screen with the apple, but something new i hadn't seen before appears - a progress bar.

It starts to increase, then the screen goes black and the mini turns off.

I option-booted into recovery, and that worked, so I launched disk utility. Checked the drive, it's fine.

Checked the partition, and I get "Invalid Record Count" - The volume could not be verified completely. Error: this disk needs to be repaired, Click repair disk.

So, I did. Then I get "Disk utility stopped verifying the volume. This disk needs to be repair. Click Repair Disk.

So I do that again.

I get "Error: Disk utility can't repair this disk. Back up as many of your files as possible, reformat the disk, and restore your backed-up files."

Here's the thing. How did this happen? How do I back stuff up, remove the drive ? Again? Is this indicating a bad SSD out of the box? Or is it time to give my mini "the hard goodbye" and drop it off the side of my boat and watch it sink, drink a pbr, and start saving for a new box?