Macbook Pro SSD Was Damaged By Upgrading System

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Level 1

5 points

Macbook Pro SSD Was Damaged By Upgrading System

Hello!

I did regular system updates with my Macbook pro two weeks ago, but it stuck at some point and never came alive. So I took it to a Genius bar to fix the problem. At first we thought it was some software problem and should be easy to fix, since the problem occurred during system upgrading. But after the technician tried testing the hardware, it showed some portion of my SSD was damaged. Due to what the technician said, when the system was upgrading, it tried to write data to some forbidden ram so the ram was damaged. It's a very uncommon situation and he suggested me to replace my ssd.

I bought this mac pro one and half years ago, I'm shocked at what I've encountered. Besides the quality of an Apple product, the ssd can get damaged when customer tries to update? My warranty expired on May, I need to pay about $500 to replace the ssd. The thing is, next time, when it comes to update, I'm really worried about the same case happen again.

I don't know if anyone in the community ever encounter such headache problem. If so, please share the experience!

And is it possible for Apple to replace the SSD for free to us since the failure has nothing to do with our customer? We just follow the rules to do system update...

And if there's any Apple technician here in the community, can you please explain why system update can ruin the SSD?

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, macOS Sierra (10.12), null

Posted on Nov 14, 2016 3:05 PM

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Answer 1

Nov 14, 2016 3:24 PM in response to Kevinxu90

It can't.

Your post is mixing RAM and SSD. Writing to RAM has nothing to do with the SSD. Upgrading to Sierra can not harm the RAM nor the SSD. It is likely coincidental that the SSD failed when it did. But given your description of the tech's story I would be suspicious that the SSD is dead.

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Answer 2

Nov 14, 2016 3:53 PM in response to Kevinxu90

A major system Upgrade, say ElCapitan to Sierra, re-writes over 350,000 files in the process. That makes it far more likely for a drive (any drive) to fail at the exact moment you are doing an Upgrade.

This is an interesting correlation, but it is not an Upgrade cause-and-effect. It is not caused by the Upgrade, it is caused by re-writing over 350,000 files.

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Answer 3

Kevinxu90 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 14, 2016 4:14 PM in response to BobTheFisherman

Thanks for reply!

When I went to the Genius bar, the first thing the tech did was checking the hardware. After finding everything was fine, he tried to reinstall the system. But it didn't work. So the next thing he did was to check SSD in more details, and then found the problem, some partition was damaged. I asked him why, then he explained when upgrading the system, something was mistakenly written to a forbidden area... I believe he might just want to make the answer easy to be understood.

I think maybe you're right, it's coincidental that the ssd failed when I tried to upgrade. But I'll try to get more ssd failure details later.

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Answer 4

Kevinxu90 Author

Level 1

5 points

Nov 14, 2016 8:39 PM in response to Kevinxu90

I just find another post here: Re: Macbook Air SSD failure?

It has the same situation as I had. The only difference is that it's MBA and mine is MBP. The SSD failure caused by upgrading the system..

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Answer 5

rioter00

Level 1

8 points

Dec 19, 2016 1:35 PM in response to Kevinxu90

I am interested to hear if you had any resolution with Apple. The exact same thing happened to me. I had a failed upgrade a few weeks ago, and I was encountering recurring freezes and moments that my MBP didn't recognize my SSD.

And yesterday, on booting, it stopped seeing the SSD all together, showing the folder icon with question mark.

Recovery mode's disk utility and all other routes didn't show the my SSD.

I don't want to pay for an all new SSD array for several reasons.

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Answer 6

Dec 19, 2016 1:51 PM in response to rioter00

Any Drive can fail at any time. That's why a Trusted Backup is SO Important.

But when you do a software Upgrade and add or re-write over 350,000 files, even an SSD drive is more likely to fail during that process than when you are saving one email.

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Answer 7

rioter00

Level 1

8 points

Dec 19, 2016 2:34 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Your response was completely unrelated and zero help.

No thanks.

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