The Curious Case of the Blinking SSD
My SSD keeps disappearing and I don't know why.
Thats the issue, here is the context.
I have a mid-2011 iMAC which had notoriously slow HD by default. More than a year ago I added an SSD and created a Fusion drive which improved performance 10 fold. I had no issues with this setup until recently when the SSD died.
So I got another SSD, popped my iMAC open and replaced it. Before I put it in I tested it under OSX and Windows to make sure all looked good. The issue is the SSD just disappears for no good reason which means its fatal to the Fusion drive setup. It seems to disappear whenever there is intense drive activity (like reinstalling the OS, restoring from a Time Machine or doing a deep scan/check with a tool like DriveDX) or when the machine is idle for long periods of time. But this could all be coincidental - its just the only pattern I have noticed. Rebooting usually brings the SSD back (9 out 10 tests it did anyway).
Before I crack it open again - something I really don't want to do - I wondered if there is anything that maybe at fault at the OS level (or anything else I can try) before resorting to opening it up. To me it sounds like a connection issue - maybe the power connector isn't stuck in properly. Here are some logs/screenshots:
Working:
Atalanta:~ solomani$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Maline Fusion HD 2.0 TB disk0s2
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *120.0 GB disk1
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS SSD 120 119.2 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
/dev/disk3 (disk image):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme +11.9 TB disk3
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS Time Machine Backups 11.9 TB disk3s2
BLINKING
Atalanta:~ solomani$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *2.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Maline Fusion HD 2.0 TB disk0s2
DISK Utility says all is good:
DriveDX also says all is good (but the SSD disappears during any deep scans so this is all high-level status):
I even setup Finder to show the drives on my desktop to visually monitor it:
But when it "blinks out" I see this:
Thanks all.
