Q: Macbook Air SSD failure?

That wasn't meant for you.

Yes, I live in the U.S. and the purchase was also made in the U.S.

Here is my story for the last month. I first reprted the issue here on Sptember 3 when the issue was first breaking up: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5210319?start=22&tstart=0

Since then I first took my MBA to a 3rd party repair center that I found on yelp. The reason was getting it repaired faster and having 3 years warranty on ssd. They accepted it but then found out they were also out of stock. I gave up after waiting two weeks and arranged an other genious bar appointment at Valley Fair Apple Store to tell what I learned here in the discussions. I asked them for a free reapir and after having the represnetative going back and forth with the manager they accpted to get it repaired for free out of warranty. I was told I would wait about 2 weeks to get it repaired on a remote repair center. 8 days later I received a call that my MBA was ready to be picked up from store.

So, long story short you DON'T need to pay anything for that SSD failure even if you are out of warranty. I didn't know what was the original SSD model used on my MBA but new one reports 'SM128E'. I assume this is Samsung and I won't have any issues again. Good luck for all of you.  

Hi.

Can I ask which Apple store you went to?

I'm going to a shop at Bluewater in the UK on Wednesday. Even though I am just out of warranty, I'm going to claim a replacement for free based on the fact discussed here.

I've already wasted my time so long to address this issue.

I'm in the midlands, I took it to the only store nearby. I'm not sure they were allowed to replace the machine, but I was told that because there were no hard drives in stock in the area and it would be more than two weeks for delivery, that they were swapping the machine. I also have Apple Care which probably helped. I also mentioned they had my machine for two weeks six months ago and I couldn't wait that long again for my machine because I run my business off it.

I think they did it because it was the second repair in six months and I asked for every other option to get it fixed faster before they offered me the machine. I also mentioned that the drive I needed would be out of stock before she even tried to order it because there was a problem with the 2012 MBAs. She said there wouldn't be, but I think that also helped. I knew about the fault.

It's really going to depend on the store, who your dealing with and the problems you describe it having before it died on you. I mentioned other minor faults since the logic board had been replaced as well (one USB wouldn't work all the time and I had to keep using my finger to pull the ports back into place to use them). I also told them about how hot the machine had become the night before it failed on me. I did get someone who really wanted to help me and I guess the store manager who authorized it didn't want to deal with an angry customer.

After my own personal MacBook Air 11inch 2012 Toshiba SSD failed last week,

I now have one my clients do exactly the same thing, a week later.
I'm not saying it's related.
But the symptoms are exactly the same,
the drive is showing up as a Sandforce controller 33KB.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6LEykaS7Iw

Coincedence? maybe.

Just got my MBA back. The technician told me that there was nothing official but Apple sent Samsung SSD to replace my Toshiba.

Restoring from TM now. Hope everything will be allright...

For anybody in the UK, it may be similar waiting times - I phoned up today (Meadowhall) and they told me that the part is due in stock on the 8th October.

I however got offered a replacement if I wanted it, so they're now going to give me a 2013 MBA instead, hopefully have no problems with this one!

Hey Hotur,

Thats good! was it the first fault your MBA had? or did you have a fault before?

They said they couldn't give us a replacement due to it being the only fault it has has!

Really? they told us they couldn't do that??! I am sure the branch we go to just don't have a clue and are full of lies, we have been told everything under the sun apart from the sky is pink! Really annoyed with them at the minute!

Had an issue or two before which turned out to be software issues (Screen just randomly turned off - Think I solved it with something to do with hard drive going to sleep being turned off) so not sure if that had anything to do with it, it was only purchased in May too.

Told me that it would be a core i7 1.7ghz rather than my i5 1.8ghz so there would be slight differences, and that the replacement waiting time was 2-3 weeks, so actually longer than the part to come back in stock but was totally my choice no what to do. But hey, had a few troubles with mine in a short space on time, plus its the newer model so happy to wait longer

Update!

My new SSD from OWC (Other World Computing) came in today. I followed their instructional video online. The new drive doesn't appear when you first turn it on holding the option key. Not sure why though if someone knows the answer to that.(maybe cause it wasn't formated for mac osx extended journaled??) I had to boot into recovery from internet and then open disk utilities and format the drive. Then I installed the OS onto the new one. I think this is the cheapest way to go for the people who don't have warranty and want a somewhat quick repair. Hope this was helpful to most people.

note: OWC does offer a 3 year warranty. If the company were to go out of business you wouldn't have that warranty. I hardly doubt they would. but you never know.

biga09,

the reason it does not show when you first boot up holding down the option key,

is the Boot Picker will only show drives that have a bootable partition,

when you first get the drive it will have nothing on it, and probably won't even be partitioned.

It will need to have soem kind of operating system on it, for it to show.

Update. My MBA is fixed and will be delivered by tomorrow. I wasn't hit by any big delay (total repair time was about 7-9 days). Great repair experience and this is before considering this was done as a warranty exception.

I got a warranty exception too. Been promised delivery of my mac by the end of the week. Must admit that while I was annoyed losing some data and productivity, this response from apple to provide an exception reminds me again, why I choose apple over others.

Jacob