MX Linux Forum

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 3:53 am**

It had to happen sooner or later, especially as I have been deliberately nonchalant about my use of this drive and I haven't been shy speaking about it here. I haven't been deliberately thrashing it, but I haven't been shy in my use of it either. I estimate my combined total volume of content on the drive has hovered around 1.2TB consistently throughout it's 5 year lifespan.

So how did it die? Very suddenly, no warning, so my understanding of hardware seems to indicate the fault was most likely from the drives controller because I've seen dying SSD's before and they often have some very tell-tale signs that make it easy to get data off the drive before it's too late - not so this time.

My Laptops cooling system started running at about half speed when I woke it from suspend the second time this morning. For this machine, a 9 year old Lenovo T560, that's a little odd because running MX, it's normally whisper quiet with the fan barely ticking over and only becoming audible when it's doing some heavy lifting. I checked my emails and let the updates run while I made a coffee, when I returned to it, the fan was still running at about half mast as it was earlier so I thought I'd reboot in case there was a memory leak or a dirty memory issue, as it used to have before I addressed the issue.

My Laptop booted to the Lenovo logo and stopped dead, nothing would make it go past it, could not boot into BIOS or do anything with it. Resetting it by pressing the pin-hole battery disconnect button made no difference so I cracked it open, removed the drive and the machine was happy to boot, so I knew the drive was the failure point. When I tried to read the drive from a USB drive enclosure, every machine I plugged it into just could not read the drive and watching the kernel messages revealed the kernel could not determine anything about the drive, it was as if it did not exist, other than pulling a few volts from the USB port. It was then I reaslised my last backup was 3 weeks ago and I had neglected to take them after doing my financial years end for 31st March - big oops.

All in all, only a minor loss as I retrieved much from emails I keep stored on my hosts mail server. Recalling I purchased this drive about 5 years ago, I looked up the invoice and it had 2 months left of its 5 year warranty, so I get to do it again for next to no financial outlay, other than a few dollars for a new 250GB SSD from stock to get the machine running again and a courier fee to return the dead drive. Home is encrypted, Windows had no value, so I have next to no concerns if they can get it to read, which I think is highly unlikely. I copied my 3 week old personal snapshot from my backup drive to my ventoy boot USB, booted into my snapshot, pulled in the updates while partitioning the new drive, run the installer and reboot. I then selectively rsync'd the minimal data needed to run the machine as if nothing ever happened and get on with it.

I believe the SSD failure was just pure bad luck, not a case of having worn out because I kept a close eye on its condition and it was nowhere near a point of concern showing 89 percent endurance remaining last time I checked. I have to admit, my last 3 weeks have been very busy in my work-from-home business with some new clients so I have slipped up with my backups, that's my bad, but overall a good enough result through having a good backup strategy, even when I missed one

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 5:12 am**

I have had 4 SSDs die on me within the period of.. ohh... a few months. All bought around the same time, so... one could expect that they would go in succession. Guess they missed each other. I was JUST outside the warranty.

They die.. it sucks. With backups it sucks a little less. Glad you could use the warranty!

My condolences.

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 5:52 am**

Out of interest,what make was the drive?

Chris

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 5:58 am**

Apologizing for quoting myself, but:

If your backup schedule includes the word 'about', as in 'about monthly', 'more or less weekly' procrastination will hit you at the most inconvenient time

Mike

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:09 am**

m_pav wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 3:53 am...

So how did it die? Very suddenly, no warning, so ...

... It is that why I prefer for the own data a HDD instead a SSD.

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 7:36 am**

I've had two SATA SSD drives fail, both 512Gb. Bought at same time. So far three NVME drives are still slogging on. They are all tTB each. One primary, a backup and an archive which I never delete anything. Archive is only hooked up via USB-C once a week. The backup is daily, with only updated DATA from the primary. The primary I have reinstalled several times using Windows 11, and several Distros of Linux settling on MX 3.5 ahs. So far, so good.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: 6.13.8-4-liquorix-amd64 [6.13-9~mx23ahs] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 clocksource: tsc
    avail: hpet,acpi_pm parameters: audit=0 intel_pstate=disable amd_pstate=disable
    BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.13.8-4-liquorix-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.20.0 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.38 wm: xfwm4 v: 4.20.0 with: xfce4-panel
    tools: xfce4-screensaver vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.32.0 Distro: MX-23.5_ahs_x64 Libretto Jan 12 2025
    base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Mini-pc System: BOSGAME product: EffiZen Series v: Version 1.0 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: BOSGAME model: ACB20 v: Version 1.0 serial: <superuser required> part-nu: 0001
    uuid: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 101 date: 03/11/2024
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech ERGO M575 Trackball serial: <filter> charge: 55%
    rechargeable: yes status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2 gen: 2
    level: v3 note: check built: 2020-22 process: TSMC n7 (7nm) family: 0x17 (23)
    model-id: 0x68 (104) stepping: 1 microcode: 0x8608107
  Topology: cpus: 1x dies: 1 clusters: 1 cores: 8 threads: 16 tpc: 2 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 512 KiB desc: d-8x32 KiB; i-8x32 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 8x512 KiB L3: 8 MiB desc: 2x4 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1800 min/max: 1400/1800 boost: enabled scaling: driver: acpi-cpufreq
    governor: ondemand cores: 1: 1800 2: 1800 3: 1800 4: 1800 5: 1800 6: 1800 7: 1800 8: 1800 9: 1800
    10: 1800 11: 1800 12: 1800 13: 1800 14: 1800 15: 1800 16: 1800 bogomips: 57487
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed mitigation: untrained return thunk; SMT enabled with STIBP protection
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow mitigation: Safe RET
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; IBPB: conditional; STIBP: always-on; RSB filling;
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Lucienne driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-5
    code: Vega process: GF 14nm built: 2017-20 pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:164c class-ID: 0300
    temp: 43.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.20.0 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 509x286mm (20.04x11.26") s-diag: 584mm (22.99")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI-A-1 model: Sceptre F27 built: 2023 res: N/A dpi: 82 gamma: 1.2
    size: 598x336mm (23.54x13.23") diag: 686mm (27") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 640x480
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: amd radeonsi platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: swrast
    gbm: drv: kms_swrast surfaceless: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: amd mesa v: 24.2.8-1mx23ahs glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2 direct-render: yes
    renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (radeonsi renoir LLVM 15.0.6 DRM 3.61 6.13.8-4-liquorix-amd64)
    device-ID: 1002:164c memory: 2.93 GiB unified: no
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.304 layers: 3 device: 0 type: integrated-gpu name: AMD Radeon Graphics
    (RADV RENOIR) driver: mesa radv v: 24.2.8-1mx23ahs device-ID: 1002:164c surfaces: xcb,xlib
    device: 1 type: cpu name: llvmpipe (LLVM 15.0.6 256 bits) driver: mesa llvmpipe
    v: 24.2.8-1mx23ahs (LLVM 15.0.6) device-ID: 10005:0000 surfaces: xcb,xlib
  Info: Tools: api: eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo de: xfce4-display-settings x11: xdriinfo,
    xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr
Audio:
  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 04:00.1
    chip-ID: 1002:1637 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor driver: N/A
    alternate: snd_pci_acp3x, snd_rn_pci_acp3x, snd_pci_acp5x, snd_pci_acp6x, snd_acp_pci,
    snd_rpl_pci_acp6x, snd_pci_ps, snd_sof_amd_renoir, snd_sof_amd_rembrandt, snd_sof_amd_vangogh,
    snd_sof_amd_acp63, snd_sof_amd_acp70 pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 04:00.5
    chip-ID: 1022:15e2 class-ID: 0480
  Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio vendor: Conexant Systems
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 04:00.6
    chip-ID: 1022:15e3 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.13.8-4-liquorix-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.1 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I225-V driver: igc v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: N/A bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:15f3 class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: MEDIATEK MT7922 802.11ax PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter driver: mt7921e
    v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 14c3:0616
    class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Info: services: NetworkManager, smbd, wpa_supplicant
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: MediaTek Wireless_Device driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.1 speed: 480 Mb/s
    lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 1-4:2 chip-ID: 0e8d:c616 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 5.2 lmp-v: 11
    sub-v: 2411 hci-v: 11 rev: 616 class-ID: 7c0104
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:6 sco-mtu: 240:8 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
    service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio, telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 1.82 TiB used: 40.38 GiB (2.2%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 990 EVO 1TB size: 931.51 GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 126 Gb/s lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter>
    fw-rev: 0B2QKXJ7 temp: 51.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Samsung model: PSSD T7 size: 931.51 GiB block-size:
    physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: USB rev: 3.2 spd: 10 Gb/s lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-2x1
    tech: SSD serial: <filter> scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 931.26 GiB size: 915.57 GiB (98.31%) used: 40.38 GiB (4.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: no
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 5 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 file: /swap/swap
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 51.4 C mobo: 50.0 C gpu: amdgpu temp: 43.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2253 libs: 1154 tools: apt, apt-get, aptitude, nala, synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
    1: deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
    2: deb http://mirror.math.princeton.edu/pub/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm ahs
Info:
  Memory: total: N/A available: 28.27 GiB used: 1.63 GiB (5.8%)
  Processes: 360 Power: uptime: 25m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep avail: s2idle
    wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot, suspend, test_resume image: 11.25 GiB
    services: upowerd,xfce4-power-manager Init: SysVinit v: 3.08 runlevel: 5 default: graphical
    tool: systemctl
  Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.37
Boot Mode: UEFI

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 3:52 pm**

chrispop99 wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 5:52 am Out of interest,what make was the drive?

It was only the hottest drive on the planet at the time, a Samsung 860 EVO 2TB Model MZ-76E2T0 2020.02.

When it came down from $NZ 795 Trade cost to $NZ 478, I snapped it up smartly. We get ripped blind here for computer hardware, so many folk buy bargain basement junk every 2 years and end up spending more per year than they would if they just spent another $400

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:22 pm**

Was this the one having trouble with hardinfo2?

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 9:07 pm**

Stevo wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 6:22 pm Was this the one having trouble with hardinfo2?

No. The issue with that app is the verbage used for the 4 particular tests.

I'm just waiting for 2 more customers to send me back a copy of the PDF I sent them b4 the failure, I'll re-create them and I'll be all squared up again.

Posted: **Mon Apr 07, 2025 9:27 pm**

@Eadwine Rose
Thank you. Wow, to lose 4 SSDs' in such a short time frame, we need to go the extraneous section of different language dictionaries to explain that

At one point my brand new 1TB SSD backup appeared to not be working, so I was thinking I was in the worst possible scenario, turns out it was debris in the USB port, whew!

@MikeR
Exactly what I was thinking, and you can bet it will almost invariably be that exact scenario.

@oops
I used to be that way too, but a spinning platter controller can fail just as easily as SSD and I have seen incidences where that has happened in my nearly 30 years of doing this stuff. I think from memory, this is the 3rd time where I have been personally affected by drive failure. Every other incident was PEBCAK.

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 6:56 am**

m_pav wrote: Mon Apr 07, 2025 9:27 pm ...
I used to be that way too, but a spinning platter controller can fail just as easily as SSD and I have seen incidences where that has happened in my nearly 30 years of doing this stuff. I think from memory, this is the 3rd time where I have been personally affected by drive failure. Every other incident was PEBCAK.

Maybe, but only on very very old HDDs. (I have never seen this case)

Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard / PEBCAK... mostly if the Hdd fell down on the floor ;-)

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 12:07 pm**

Hello all,

What are the 'very tell-tale signs' of a dying ssd?

I'm pretty much 100% ssd now, so my backups are ssd as well.

I'd led myself to believe that ssds don't just die. That they just 'shrink' as memory goes bad.

Thank you.

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 3:03 pm**

They die. Mine all started with i/o errors on boot. I don't have that image doohickey when the system starts, so I could see that happening, filled the log right up. Rebooting made those go away, then next boot they are there again. Completely erratic. That can take a week to a month, and after that.. bye.

Of course YMMV, but there is a reason I chuck stuff in the cloud. I have had backup SSDs die on me before these 4, I find they tend to live less long than the oldie spinners. Why that is.. not a clue. I don't do anything different.

Anyway.. TLDR; they die.

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 3:42 pm**

Eeegads!

I just flipped our Studio computer over to two 2TB SSD's last year.. There are literally years of work on there, (yes I do backup when the mood strikes). Now I'm terrified...lol

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 8:04 pm**

How do they die? To better understand that, we have to be aware of some of the lesser known elements of their design.

Data stored on a SSD which is never changed is still moved around the drive by the drives firmware to keep its integrity through the drives lifetime. This is done to try to avoid data loss due to electrical charge leakage from the storage media over time because the charge states of each transistor will either represent a 1 or a 0, which are translated to into binary values. Using electrical charge states makes data prone to loss for any number of reasons, such as the SSD's onboard charge capacitors draining to zero or slight manufacturing defects which lead to drain down a charged element. Most quality branded SSD's will have a charge capacitor that can sustain a SSD for up to a year, which is why consumer quality SSD's are only given a 1 year data integrity rating.

In order to keep the drives data fresh, SSD firmware will test the readability of each sector and move its contents out when it detects the possibility of an integrity loss. Using file hashes and redundancy features, it is possible for a mildly altered file to be fully reconstructed during this move, but either way, the unused file has moved to a different storage location which counts towards the endurance statistics. If you have a SSD that's not been connected for a long time, it pays to leave it connected and unused for at least 10 minutes to allow the firmware to do its work.

This is why I have over the last 2 years started to advise customers to get drive sizes that are roughly double what their maximum expected usage value will be. This is what I did with the 2TB SSD in my daily driver and what this post is related to, where at any time, I might have consumed roughly 50% of the drives capacity where in reality, it was more like 60%

So for a drive whose controller does not immediately die as mine did, the evidence is pretty much like @Eadwine Rose said, however, read on to see a real world scenario of a dying SSD I have already spoken of on these forums.

I saved a machine that started generating random errors when saving a file. The users reported it was taking longer than it should have to save files and sometimes threw up an error. For all intents and purposes, the save actions appeared to be normal, but the machine appeared to be "off its game" with unexpected pauses and failures to load up new apps after the file save operation, and that did not provide a good look for a machine with an "alternate OS".

The machine had done it's life in a local council office and was donated for community use so I loaded it with MX and put it into a church to act as a recording station for the meetings held in that building. It was used by many groups, both church and non-church related. I provisioned accounts for the regulars and all others has a guest account on which I placed restrictions. One user, an ex broadcast studio tech would record their meeting with Audacity, save the project with each project weighing in at roughly 2.5 - 3 GB in size and leave it on the machine for later reference "if ever needed" , however he never did anything with his recordings, such is the nature of free use of a machine with scant regard for its continued availability. The SSD was only 128GB and it had already done some time in corporate office use, and the OS and swap partitions occupied 30GB of that. Long story short, that user consumed 55GB of space over 5 months and the drive was getting short on space, hence the save errors. As it turns out, his large files were smashing at the SSD wear leveling algorithms leaving little space for his and others usage.

The SSD firmware was doing all it could to keep files intact with ever decreasing available space and soon enough the SSD pages started to burn as it tried to shift stuff around to increase available space by maximising page usage (SSD's use pages instead of sectors). End result, only a small volume of the pages had died, but the overall endurance suffered much and it lost the fight.

In this case, I could save the machine state by moving all the the user account files to an external drive, make a snapshot-personal saving all that I left in the user accounts and saving the ISO to an external drive. I fitted a new larger SSD, installed the snapshot and returned users data to their profiles so they had no sense of loss.

Posted: **Tue Apr 08, 2025 9:38 pm**

Would not smartctrl have shown this drive was failing?

Posted: **Wed Apr 09, 2025 1:27 am**

No, the drive was showing 89% endurance remaining last time I looked which was 3 weeks prior to it dying. The other stats that might have been of interest were that it had reached a temp of 52°c not long after I first installed it when the laptop did not go to sleep on one occasion when I put it into my Laptop backpack and went for a 163KM (100 miles) drive. That was warmer than it should have been, but not enough to have caused any lasting damage.
It also recorded a number of unsafe shutdowns and crc error checks, but nothing of any great concern that would lead me to a sense of impending doom.

I didn't get a chance to check it on the day it died and try as I might, nothing could get a read on the drive.

MX Linux Forum

My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

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Re: My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

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Re: My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

Re: My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

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Re: My Daily drivers 2TB SSD died this morning

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