iFixit - Answers With Device "Solid State Drive"

Solid State Drive: 990 Pro SSD not drawing power

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 01:17:48 -0700

Anyone know how to debug a 990 Pro that just doesn't draw any power? I checked with a USB tester and it shows no differences in amperage when plugged in vs not. Afaik there does not seem to be any shorts on the board, though I could be wrong

Solid State Drive: What tool to remove mounting screws from Samsung EVO 860 SSD?

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 19:28:13 -0700

I’ve got a Samsung EVO 860 SSD with what looks like two mounting screws on one side of the thin edge of the drive. Because of them, it won’t fit into the USB drive case, so I need to remove them.

I’ve got a tool set with 57 different bits, but none works on this screw, and I’m not even sure which bit I would need because the screw isn’t identified.

⟐ Commented June 16, 2025 at 19:28 MST

OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD 1 TB: Does not show up in Disk Utility, Overheats.

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 12:38:04 -0700

I bought this about 3 years ago to upgrade my Late 2013 Mac Pro (Trash Can Mac), and it worked great until a few days ago when I had to tear apart my Mac to to fix issues brought on by the DIMM board itself failing. I also replaced the CMOS battery at the time because I was already deep into it, so figured might as well. Afterward, first boot I get flashing question mark file, reboot, boots up. Still having DIMM errors, so shutdown, swapped memory cards around, boot back up, back to flashing question mark file.

No matter what I tried, never got past that again, so I had to pull out my old SSD and swap it in, boots right up, memory is all working, original apple SSD is all good. I order OWC's SSD enclosure, get it today, plug the SSD in, nothing shows up. 30 min plugged in, jostling it around, trying things, nothing changes. Doesn't show up in Disk Utility at all, lights are all powered on the SSD and the enclosure, its plugged directly into the back of the mac. I notice it's getting really hot, so I unplug it.

Literally nothing has changed, I can't find any damage or signs of failed components visually, what am I missing? Is it worth trying to have someone recover? I had all my data, and even bootcamp installed on this SSD. I look up this SSD online and turns out this seems to be a common issue, with no solution so far I can find.

⟐ Commented April 16, 2024 at 12:38 MST

Solid State Drive: About how much life is left on this SSD?

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 21:08:03 -0700

I got this SSD in a pile of junk (128GB mSATA SM841N) and while it works, it was at 88% when I got it - not ideal as a “production” drive, but I threw it in an enclosure and turned it into a music SSD. However, it has taken a sudden 7% lifetime hit at some point in the time I’ve used it as a music SSD.

How much life is this SSD likely have as a real world estimate, or am I better off dumping it now and moving onto a 256GB class SSD? As far as the security of my CD rips I do have a primary SSD with WAV and FLAC files on it, so if this does drop dead they exist elsewhere.

However it was at 100% 7 days ago so the performance hit is new.

I’m also wondering what the SM841N official TBW rating is - hopefully being a drive with 20.60TB of data isn’t a concern on it’s own.

I replaced the enclosure due to the poor quality of the previous enclosure I tried and it did fix the performance hit (and TRIM message) but the 82% health wear. See the above image:

I suspect this is a 75TBW drive but I can’t verify that for sure, since it’s hard to trace the retail version of the drive down to make sure.

⟐ Commented January 23, 2021 at 21:08 MST

Solid State Drive: PCIe M.2 adapter for MacBook Air SSD not showing up in BIOS, etc.

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 16:05:08 -0700

I’ve recently purchased this adapter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9OUT8K/

I have a Gigabyte H110M-A motherboard that I use for a personal home server, but the adapter refuses to show up in the BIOS or Gparted. I’ve tested the card on another older system which acknowledged the card perfectly fine, and I formatted it as NTFS with no issues.

There is a red LED on the card which means it is receiving power from the PCIe slot.

Maybe the motherboard is incompatible, or there is a setting I need to change, or maybe a driver issue? I’m stuck.

Any help is appreciated, thank you!

Transcend StoreJet SSD: Why does my Transcend StoreJet 500 not detected by my Surface Pro?

Wed, 21 Jun 2017 09:34:21 -0700

I have two external hard drives. The one mentioned above and a Verbatim 1TB. The Verbatim has no problem, but my Surface Pro 4 fails to recognize the Transcend StoreJet SSD.

When plugged in it goes on and off and it cancels all other devices on the docking station. The docking station needs to be rebooted again for it to recognize the other devices again eg. hard drives or other memory sticks and only when the StoreJet was physically removed.

I had no problem with the StoreJet drive on my previous laptop. It even does it when I plugged it in directly onto the Surface Pro 4.

⟐ Commented June 21, 2017 at 9:34 MST