First External SSD to Fail on Me!

[RadDave]

Well, I've had a small number of spinning external backup HDs crap out on me over the last 6 years or so, but my 125 GB LaCie SSD is about to fail according to DriveDx (first pic) - this has been in use since 2013 on my MBPro as a third B/U (after TM & CCC) for a number of my Finder folders (e.g. Music, Docs, Pics, and a few others) - decided to just replace it w/ the much smaller but 2x the storage SanDisk at only $60 - seems to be getting to the point of spinners vs. SSD that money is a lesser concern, although SSDs have a finite life span. Dave
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[chscag]

One reason why external SSDs seem to fail faster than their internal counterparts is the lack of TRIM. I believe I responded some time back to another thread about how to enable TRIM for an external SSD. Internal SSDs (at least the Apple branded ones) have TRIM turned on automatically.

sudo trimforce enable

The above command from Terminal should enable TRIM on your SSDs. That command does not affect Apple branded SSDs which have TRIM on automatically.

Regarding your SSD that seems to be failing... you've had a great run from it (5 years +). Time to replace it.

 

[RadDave]

One reason why external SSDs seem to fail faster than their internal counterparts is the lack of TRIM. I believe I responded some time back to another thread about how to enable TRIM for an external SSD. Internal SSDs (at least the Apple branded ones) have TRIM turned on automatically.

sudo trimforce enable

The above command from Terminal should enable TRIM on your SSDs. That command does not affect Apple branded SSDs which have TRIM on automatically.

Regarding your SSD that seems to be failing... you've had a great run from it (5 years +). Time to replace it.

Hi Charlie - thanks for your comments (and you did provide that Trimforce command in another thread that we both posted) - I now have 3 external SSDs for backup use and 2 more ready to go, so I need to decide on this TRIM issue - my 2 laptops have TRIM support for the internal drives. When I open terminal and enter the TRIM command, a rather ominous warning from Apple appears that necessitates a Y/N response (pic below) - not a 'warm invitation' to participate -

Plus, after reading a number of links on TRIM, reservations seem common using 3rd party SSDs in a macOS environment and blacklists exist - just one discussion HERE; also, I visited the SanDisk website and found a number of TRIM threads, such as this ONE that further confounds the issue for me. So, although I understand the TRIM command and what it is suppose to do, Apple's take on the subject remains confusing. Dave
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[chscag]

Dave....

That's a typical "SYA" response from Apple to make sure you really want to enable TRIM on your other than Apple devices.

As far as I know, enabling TRIM for external SSDs has not caused any known damage or shortened the life of the SSD. I have it turned on for my Samsung T5 SSD.

 

[MacInWin]

TRIM only works through Thunderbolt interfaces, not USB, according to the first article referenced in Post #3. So if it's a USB drive, no need for TRIM, and even if you enable it, it won't work.

 

[chscag]

Jake is referring to this:

A Few Additional Notes About TRIM

TRIM isn't supported in external enclosures that use USB or FireWire as the method of connection to your Mac.

Thunderbolt enclosures with SSDs do support the use of TRIM.

Currently, the Samsung line of T5 and the faster X5 external SSDs would be supported.

 

[RadDave]

Thanks Charlie and Jake for your further comments; at the moment, my external SSDs are Samsung & SanDisk all connected via USB - from your statements, I probably have no need to enable TRIM on my laptops although I would like each to take advantage of this command - still seems somewhat confusing to me. Dave

 

[chscag]

I would go ahead and issue the command anyway. The article that talks about the enclosure type is from May 2019 and I believe refers to an older implementation of the TRIM command. Apple may have updated that, but in any event, it will not impair or harm the drive if you issue the command and it doesn't work.

 

[krs]

A general question about external drives as backup drives.

Is there really any point to spend the extra money to buy an SSD external for backup?
I'm trying to think of agood reason why.

For backup, speed is not a requirement but capacity and reliability is, at least in my mind.
As to capacity, a spinning drive will be a lot cheaper than an SSD for the same capacity or you get more capacity for the same dollars.
As to reliability, current SSD dive reliability seems to be no better than spinners and often worse with the current technology used.

Over the years, I have used about two dozen externals, anything from 3.5-inch USB 2.0 and Firewire drives with a separate power brick to 2.5-inch USB 3.0 drives.
I never had an actual drive failure.
Two externals failed during the last 20 years or so, but in both cases the bridge in the enclosure failed, not the actual hard drive.
In fact I just found 8 old IDE hard drives that were forgotten about and had been sitting in a closet gathering dust.
Plugged those into an IDE/USB adapter and they all showed up fine on the Mac. Not really what I expected - I thought some of them would not be readable.
What surprised me was the capacity of those old drives - biggest one I think was a 40GB 3.5-inch one

 

[pm-r]

A general question about external drives as backup drives.

Is there really any point to spend the extra money to buy an SSD external for backup?
I'm trying to think of agood reason why.

For backup, speed is not a requirement but capacity and reliability is, at least in my mind.

DITTO!!!
I wondered about the same question and was about to reply with the same question, and especially when reliability is not exacxtly being one of the SSD's main attributes.

But they would sure never be part of any of my data backup strategies.

And no, I'm not complaining or whining!!!



- Patrick
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[chscag]

Is there really any point to spend the extra money to buy an SSD external for backup?
I'm trying to think of a good reason why.

I can't speak for you or anyone else, but as for me, I want my backups to run as fast as allowable. The amount of time that I save by making a backup to my Samsung SSD is important to me. Might not be for you though.

I suppose you could say.... well, why don't you do the backups while you're sleeping or the machine isn't in use? I like to monitor all my backups.

Another use for my external SSDs are as a boot drive. I think that even you would have to admit to using a SSD to boot from is an advantage. ;D

 

[krs]

Yes, I do run my backups at night.
I couldn't even run them during the day because the Macs are constantly in use from 5 in the morning until 11 or midnight.

No question that boot up time with an SSD is much faster.
However, in practice, between the Mini with a spinner and a MacBook air with an SSD, I don't see much difference since both Macs run pretty much 24/7
But for the odd times where I boot up because someone says that might address an issue I have, the boot on the MBa is a lot faster.
I just need to do that so seldom that in the overall scheme of things it doesn't matter for me.

 

[IWT]

It is a general truism that spinning platter drives usually give some warning of impending failure, whereas SSDs frequently give little or no warning and just fail. I refer mainly, but not exclusively, to EHDs.

I use a mixture of both as EHDs. SSDs for speed and "bootability", and Spinning Drives for cheapness relative to storage capacity.

Ian

 

[RadDave]

It is a general truism that spinning platter drives usually give some warning of impending failure, whereas SSDs frequently give little or no warning and just fail. I refer mainly, but not exclusively, to EHDs.

I use a mixture of both as EHDs. SSDs for speed and "bootability", and Spinning Drives for cheapness relative to storage capacity.

Well, my 'collection' of external drives is similar to Ian, i.e. a mixture w/ the spinners being the majority. I started to buy the SSDs when the prices started to drop - the 125 GB LaCie that died on me was about $120 USD 6-7 years ago, the 240 GB was $60 last week, so twice the capacity at 1/2 the price, i.e. a dollar/GB vs. 4 GB/dollar - this trend is likely to continue so pricing will become a lesser issue in the drive type decision, IMO. Over 6-7 years, I've had 2-3 spinners die on me vs. the one SSD, but of course I have a lot more spinners, so 'death rates' of these drive technologies may be similar?

Returning to my original thread question about TRIM - I sent emails to both SanDisk & to Samsung, my two brands - Samsung has yet to respond (if at all?); however, SanDisk (model/pic back in my early post) did respond (quote below) and advised not to use TRIM on their product - not much in the way of details. I'm not sure how much 'read/erase/write' activity these SSDs see as backup drives vs. being in a computer where TRIM would be much more important, as I understand the workings of solid state storage. Dave
.

Dear David,

Thank you for contacting SanDisk® Global Customer Care. It is our goal to make sure that your query is resolved so that you can enjoy using your SanDisk® product. Please be informed that the SanDisk® Extreme Portable SSD is a plug and play storage device that works like a USB Flash Drive. You can simply connect the drive to your computer and can transfer data to the drive. We would not suggest you to run TRIM on this drive.

Please respond to this email if you need any further assistance. Thank you for choosing SanDisk® products.

Best regards,
Charlie J.
SanDisk® Global Customer Care

 

[pm-r]

Yes, I do run my backups at night.
I couldn't even run them during the day because the Macs are constantly in use from 5 in the morning until 11 or midnight.

Hmmm... I don't know of any "Backup" software that can't do its backup thing while the Mac is on and actively running.



- Patrick
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[krs]

Hmmm... I don't know of any "Backup" software that can't do its backup thing while the Mac is on and actively running.

I'm glad you brought this up.
I was always wondering exactly how a backup, while I'm using the Mac, would work.

Say a backup takes 4 hours, frm noon to 4pm.
So any changes, additions, deletions I do during that time may or may not be on the backup depending on what point the backup software was with the backup task compared to what I'm changing etc.
That's not too bad, one can just assume the backup included everything up to the previous day.
But what happens if the backup softwarewas just in the middle of backing up a file that I'm changing, or it's backing up a folder where I had started to save a larger file a short while ago.
Seems to me that I could easily end up with a number of corrupted files if I run the backup while working on the Mac.
And worse, one may not even know a file is corrupt until days, weeks or even months later when one tries to open the file.

Or is SD and CCC somehow smart enough that this can't possibly happen.
I'm just playing it as safe as I can by doing backups when the Mac is not used.

 

[RadDave]

Well, just for completeness about the TRIM issue and the brands of external SSDs that I own - Samsung replied this evening (quote below) - in all honesty, I'm not convinced that the two responses I received reflect a clear understanding of Apple's 'trimforce' command, i.e. to allow TRIM to be applied to external SSDs - just curious what others may feel about these responses - now I'm still not sure that TRIM is as important on these drives when used in a backup purpose vs. in a computer w/ constant activity - just my thoughts? Dave

Jailene - 2019-09-03 20:17:12
David,

TRIM cannot be used on external SSDs. You should still be able to enable TRIM on your system, however, it will not affect/perform TRIM on your external drives.

Original Inquiry: Hello, I own 2 of your Portable SSD T5 drives (1 TB & 500 GB) used to B/U my Apple laptops running macOS Mojave 10.14.6 - TRIM can be set for external drives in the terminal using the 'trimforce' command - my question is whether this command should be set to enabled for these Samsung SSDs? Please advise. Thanks. Dave
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