Is my drive dead?

Oblivion007 · 21 Oct 2021 at 09:36

I've got a 1TB Crucial MX500 SSD which I've had as my "games" drive for just over two years. A couple of nights ago when I booted my PC I noticed that that drive wasn't showing up in "My Computer".

Checked the BIOS, not listed. Used EASEUS to see if it registered, nothing.

I know the MX500 gets a good name so not having ever had an SSD fail on me I'm a bit lost as to whether or not this is dead or simply another issue. I had received no errors or warnings as to the health of the drive.

I've tried 'power cycling' both with an external enclosure & by unplugging the sata data cable - both to no avail.

Have I got a dead SSD on my hands? Is there any way of getting the data off it, or does anyone have any tips for trying to run any checks on it? Any suggestions appreciated.

mickyflinn · 21 Oct 2021 at 10:42

Looks like its dead as you've tried diffrent power and sata cables ,diffrent sata ports and an external. One final check would be in another pc ..

Data recovery is expensive .

Oblivion007 · 22 Oct 2021 at 09:43

mickyflinn said:
Looks like its dead as you've tried diffrent power and sata cables ,diffrent sata ports and an external. One final check would be in another pc ..

Data recovery is expensive .

Yes I'm afraid that its dead. Thought a Crucial MX500 would last longer than a couple of years, and showed no signs of deterioration prior to just now appearing. My Samsung SSD has been going strong for 7+ years!

Still under warranty so can RMA it, but I value my data more than the cost of a drive so really would prefer the reliability.

mickyflinn · 22 Oct 2021 at 09:57

Oblivion007 said:
Yes I'm afraid that its dead. Thought a Crucial MX500 would last longer than a couple of years, and showed no signs of deterioration prior to just now appearing. My Samsung SSD has been going strong for 7+ years!

Still under warranty so can RMA it, but I value my data more than the cost of a drive so really would prefer the reliability.

If you value your data you ideally should be backing it up.

Oblivion007 · 22 Oct 2021 at 11:46

Thanks for the lecture :rolleyes:

mickyflinn · 22 Oct 2021 at 15:38

Oblivion007 said:
Thanks for the lecture

No lecture just words of advice so it doesn't happen to you again, take it as you please.

andy_mk3 · 22 Oct 2021 at 15:50

Yeah, that's dead. Recovery you're looking at least £200, but that can easily escalate to way higher than that.

As above if the data was that valuable it should have been backed up. If it was just a games drive then surely nothing too serious has been lost surely?

Oblivion007 · 22 Oct 2021 at 16:15

I think my point has been misinterpreted a tad. The point I was trying to make was that I would prefer to pay more for a SSD with proven reliability (which I thought the Crucial MX500 had) rather than lose data, any data - i.e. an RMA for a replacement MX500 whilst all well and good is not of particular use should it last only 2 years again, and yes it's only game data so no huge loss.

darael · 22 Oct 2021 at 16:53

This is the second thread I'm posting about a dead Crucial MX500 - and both threads were created yesterday (21/10/2021). I can't help wondering if this is a sheer coincidence or is there some component that Crucial have cheaped out on which doesn't last as long as hoped? Or just bad luck on Crucial's part, as they could have had a bad bath of components?

Either way I've been a little apprehensive of SSD drives since I had a Samsung 840 EVO fail out the blue last year. So much for being less likely to fail due to no moving parts!

andy_mk3 · 22 Oct 2021 at 17:50

I have a pair of 1TB MX500's in Raid, they're showing just shy of 92TB written after about a year of use, no signs of any faults yet.

Fact is there's always going to be some drives that do fail. I'm yet to see any signs that the MX500's have a high failure rate.

Bug One · 22 Oct 2021 at 17:54

I lost a drive about 10 years ago with all my digital photos on it. Managed to recover all but the middle of 2007. But it taught me a valuable lesson. The money I now pay for a cloud backup of all my data is invaluable. My house could burn down, and within a few hours, I'd be able to recover everything.

EsaT · 22 Oct 2021 at 18:16

darael said:
Either way I've been a little apprehensive of SSD drives since I had a Samsung 840 EVO fail out the blue last year. So much for being less likely to fail due to no moving parts!

As if that drive wasn't designed to fail:
Crappy planar tech tiny transistor TLC, which needed bubble gum and duct tape fix of firmware constantly monitoring data rewriting it when it starts evaporating.

Oblivion007 · 3 Nov 2021 at 12:18

Started the RMA process earlier this week. Anyone know how good/bad Crucial's RMA service is?

Tesla · 27 Nov 2021 at 16:10

I’ve just had a customers laptop fail, 500GB MX500, same behaviour as yours. I left it powered (only, no data) for 24+ hours but nothing. If I put my ear to the drive there’s an audible whine, did you notice that with yours?

Cyber-Mav · 27 Nov 2021 at 17:00

Oblivion007 said:
really would prefer the reliability.

Get an enterprise ssd. I use 2 of them and they have extra features too like power loss capacitors etc

Oblivion007 · 27 Nov 2021 at 17:12

Tesla said:
I’ve just had a customers laptop fail, 500GB MX500, same behaviour as yours. I left it powered (only, no data) for 24+ hours but nothing. If I put my ear to the drive there’s an audible whine, did you notice that with yours?

Can't say I did. Still finding it suspicious that its another MX500 that has gone. But then again, could just be that they are a popular drive.

Oblivion007 · 27 Nov 2021 at 17:13

Cyber-Mav said:
Get an enterprise ssd. I use 2 of them and they have extra features too like power loss capacitors etc

I'll look into that, think i'm going to get another Nvme, motherboard has the capacity so might as well use it. Looking for a good deal on a 2TB drive.

Oblivion007 · 27 Nov 2021 at 17:17

Oblivion007 said:
Started the RMA process earlier this week. Anyone know how good/bad Crucial's RMA service is?

Just to answer my own query. Not great so far. I posted by Special Delivery. I phoned them 3 weeks after posting and they said they hadn't received it. When I sent them the tracking information with the signature for it which showed that it arrived the day after sending, they miraculously found it. No update from them since.

Cyber-Mav · 2 Dec 2021 at 08:43

Odd, hard drives are usually rated to like 1 million hours to failure, thats around 114 years?
I think they lying about it straight up

Oblivion007 · 3 Dec 2021 at 12:03

Oblivion007 said:
Just to answer my own query. Not great so far. I posted by Special Delivery. I phoned them 3 weeks after posting and they said they hadn't received it. When I sent them the tracking information with the signature for it which showed that it arrived the day after sending, they miraculously found it. No update from them since.

Stop the clock! RMA's replacement has now arrived.