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MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

apple.com

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Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#21

Post by javis »

I think this may have happened to my MacBook Air 62 GB (Summer 2012). One day I booted up and nothing happened, just had a blank screen that never went away. I tried to use the internet restore and it couldn't find a drive. I then USB booted to Ubuntu and looked for the drive, but no drives were there.

Does this sound like the drive failure they're talking about? It happened a month ago and I haven't touched it since. I obviously can't run the firmware test they suggest, because my drive has already seemingly failed.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#23

Post by hsuresh »

quarterto wrote: post #3

We also recommend backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive. Why stop there? With tools and services like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and Crashplan, there's no excuse not to maintain a backup. As evidenced by this page, shit happens .

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups.

These days, i backup only user data and i don't worry about the base OS. In fact, i prefer this over TimeMachine style backups. Photos go to Google Drive, work related documents to Dropbox, all code goes to BitBucket/Github, and thats about it. Videos and other personal stuff get backed to an external disk.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#24

Post by free652 »

hsuresh wrote: post #23
quarterto wrote: post #3

We also recommend backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive. Why stop there? With tools and services like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and Crashplan, there's no excuse not to maintain a backup. As evidenced by this page, shit happens .

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. These days, i backup only user data and i don't worry about the base OS. In fact, i prefer this over TimeMachine style backups. Photos go to Google Drive…

Huh? I restored the same TimeMachine backup to multiple different machines, including a hackintosh.

Just weird.

But yea, I have dropbox, timemachine, a drobo with 16tb for photos/videos.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#25

Post by mdmarra »

hsuresh wrote: post #23
quarterto wrote: post #3

We also recommend backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive. Why stop there? With tools and services like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and Crashplan, there's no excuse not to maintain a backup. As evidenced by this page, shit happens .

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. These days, i backup only user data and i don't worry about the base OS. In fact, i prefer this over TimeMachine style backups. Photos go to Google Drive…

You can absolutely use time machine backups with a different Mac, the process is slightly different but still works.

Migrating a Time Machine backup to a new Mac

When you buy a new Mac, you can transfer all of your applications, files, settings, and other information from a Time Machine backup you've already made.

You will be asked if you want to transfer files when you start up your new Mac for the first time. Or, you can use the Migration Assistant (located in Applications/Utilities).

After Migration Assistant completes the transfer and you select your existing Time Machine backup drive, you will be prompted with "Inherit Backup History". Once selected you will be able to continue to use your existing Time Machine backup on your new Mac.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#26

Post by nwh »

javis wrote: post #21

I think this may have happened to my MacBook Air 62 GB (Summer 2012). One day I booted up and nothing happened, just had a blank screen that never went away. I tried to use the internet restore and it couldn't find a drive. I then USB booted to Ubuntu and looked for the drive, but no drives were there. Does this sound like the drive failure they're talking about? It happened a month ago and I haven't touched it since…

Sounds like it. I'd be taking it in anyway, even if you're slightly out of warranty, most Apple Stores are happy to waive the cost if you have had any specific suffering due to it.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#27

Post by microtonal »

hsuresh wrote: post #23
quarterto wrote: post #3

We also recommend backing up your data on a regular basis until you receive a replacement drive. Why stop there? With tools and services like Time Machine, Carbon Copy Cloner and Crashplan, there's no excuse not to maintain a backup. As evidenced by this page, shit happens .

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups. These days, i backup only user data and i don't worry about the base OS. In fact, i prefer this over TimeMachine style backups. Photos go to Google Drive…

Do not rely completely on Time Machine backups. I learnt the lesson in a painful way. My MBP crashed a few years back, and Apple decided to replace the motherboard. Unfortunately, Time Machine detected this as a new laptop, and won't let me restore from the backups.

But Time Machine backups are just a folder with (yet another) folder per backup timestamp. It doesn't use deltas or anything fancy, unchanged files are just hard linked.

In other words, you can browse a Time Machine backup like any other filesystem. For instance, you could just use cp or rsync to restore an exact copy.

On a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme with external hard disk, the files live in some disk image IIRC, but even there it is generally not hard to restore files.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#28

Post by nwh »

slowdown wrote: post #20

SSD's are not there yet, if you ask me. I've been running on a custom SSD on my Mac mini, with restarts required once daily after crashing (mostly due to chrome). A dozen friends of mine also had a buggy experience with SSDs. They are super fast, I mean. But not so reliable at this point in time. Will I go back to a HDD? Probably not. HDD is really good for backing up stuff, but for speed, SSD's are unmatched. There'…

I wouldn't say that. I've been using SSDs since 2009, and I've never had an issue with them. Every MacBook I've owned since then has had a hybrid of SSD + HDD for speed and capacity, and it seriously works a treat. The only issue I have ever encountered with them was an issue between a very specific combination of drives, once that was nutted out it's been solid as a rock. I would never go back.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#29

Post by microtonal »

slowdown wrote: post #20

SSD's are not there yet, if you ask me. I've been running on a custom SSD on my Mac mini, with restarts required once daily after crashing (mostly due to chrome). A dozen friends of mine also had a buggy experience with SSDs. They are super fast, I mean. But not so reliable at this point in time. Will I go back to a HDD? Probably not. HDD is really good for backing up stuff, but for speed, SSD's are unmatched. There'…

SSD's are not there yet, if you ask me. I've been running on a custom SSD on my Mac mini, with restarts required once daily after crashing (mostly due to chrome). A dozen friends of mine also had a buggy experience with SSDs. They are super fast, I mean. But not so reliable at this point in time.

There are some ugly SSDs out there with firmware problems (e.g. some people have reported problems with OCZ). I have been using different SSDs for three years (Apple branded, Samsung, and Intel) and I never had any problem or bugs. In fact, since Apple uses Samsung themselves, I have also used Trim Enabler without problems.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#30

Post by uptown »

slowdown wrote: post #20

SSD's are not there yet, if you ask me. I've been running on a custom SSD on my Mac mini, with restarts required once daily after crashing (mostly due to chrome). A dozen friends of mine also had a buggy experience with SSDs. They are super fast, I mean. But not so reliable at this point in time. Will I go back to a HDD? Probably not. HDD is really good for backing up stuff, but for speed, SSD's are unmatched. There'…

I suppose it depends on the drive, controller and firmware. I slapped an OCZ SSD into my Early 2011 Macbook Pro on day one, and it's been running flawlessly ever since.
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