Kernel panic – SSD failing?

I recently had an issue with my mid-2015 MBP (2.8Ghz, 1TB SSD) where it was freezing fairly frequently. I thought it might be a Time Machine issue, so I turned off backups and did usual maintenance attempts (reset SMC & NVRAM, ran Disk First Aid from Recovery Partition, ran Apple Diagnostics, etc), with no luck fixing the issue.

I eventually erased and did a clean install, and selectively installed just a few apps that I need for work (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud, Transmit).

It has beach-balled a couple times since the clean install, when I was watching a movie using VLC, with no other software open. Google doesn’t show up any reference to this being a known issue or happening for anyone else in VLC.

This last time I checked out the Panic Report after rebooting, and was alarmed to find the line:

Root disk errors: "Could not recover SATA HDD after 5 attempts. Terminating."

Here is the entire panic report — does this mean my SSD is failing, or is it a software compatibility issue of some kind?

Anonymous UUID: 62F14AD5-EA87-65FB-4FFF-E0931CFF2CF7

Sun Mar 11 00:04:14 2018

*** Panic Report ***

panic(cpu 4 caller 0xffffff8017f0fff0): initproc exited -- exit reason namespace 2 subcode 0xa description: none

Thread 3 crashed

RAX: 0x0000000106f03000, RBX: 0x000070000a25d3a8, RCX: 0x000070000a25d4a8, RDX: 0x000070000a25d3c8

RSP: 0x000070000a25d320, RBP: 0x000070000a25d360, RSI: 0x000070000a25d3c8, RDI: 0x000070000a25d440

R8: 0xffffffff00002c00, R9: 0x00007fffa951cfe0, R10: 0x00002d0100004600, R11: 0x00002d0100000000

R12: 0x000070000a25d378, R13: 0x000070000a25d440, R14: 0x000070000a25d3c8, R15: 0x000070000a25d440

RFL: 0x0000000000010206, RIP: 0x00007fff704f6870, CS: 0x000000000000002b, SS: 0x0000000000000023

Thread 0: 0xffffff803c3adc70

0x00007fff706412fa

0x00007fff704c3c58

0x0000000000000000

Thread 1: 0xffffff80432e5da0

0x00007fff70642882

0x00007fff704cae76

0x00007fff704ba018

0x00007fff704cc06f

0x00007fff704bf0fd

0x00007fff704ccf02

0x00007fff704d0d16

0x00007fff7077c033

0x00007fff7077bc4d

0x0000000000000000

Thread 2: 0xffffff8042d8eed0

0x00007fff7077bc40

Thread 3: 0xffffff803ee5c3c0

0x00007fff704f6870

0x00007fff704f71d1

0x00007fff704f8d51

0x00007fff70500238

0x00007fff7055276c

0x0000000106f25f19

0x0000000106f35b5b

0x00007fff704b7d50

0x00007fff704cae76

0x00007fff704ba018

0x00007fff704cc06f

0x00007fff704bf0fd

0x00007fff704ccf02

0x00007fff704d0d16

0x00007fff7077c033

0x00007fff7077bc4d

0x0000000000000000

Thread 4: 0xffffff80422564f0

0x00007fff7077bc40

Mac OS version:

17D102

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 17.4.0: Sun Dec 17 09:19:54 PST 2017; root:xnu-4570.41.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64

Kernel UUID: 18D901F1-4A03-3FF1-AE34-C26B2732F13C

System model name: MacBookPro11,5 (Mac-06F11F11946D27C5)

Root disk errors: "Could not recover SATA HDD after 5 attempts. Terminating."

EOF

Model: MacBookPro11,5, BootROM MBP114.0177.B00, 4 processors, Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 16 GB, SMC 2.30f2

Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M370X, AMD Radeon R9 M370X, PCIe, 2 GB

Graphics: Intel Iris Pro, Intel Iris Pro, Built-In

Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x802C, 0x31364B544631473634485A2D314736453120

Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 8 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, 0x802C, 0x31364B544631473634485A2D314736453120

AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x152), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.37.5.1a3)

Bluetooth: Version 6.0.2f2, 3 services, 27 devices, 1 incoming serial ports

Network Service: Wi-Fi, AirPort, en0

Serial ATA Device: APPLE SSD SM1024G, 1 TB

USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus

USB Device: Internal Memory Card Reader

USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Bus: MacBook Pro, Apple Inc., 27.1