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MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

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61–70 of 107 posts

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#62

Silly question probably, but why would the 256GB model (mine) be exempt?

Yeah I have the 256. That page says that if you flash the firmware update utility and run it you'll be "redirected back to this page" if there is an issue.

I've run that firmware updater without any warnings or anything... so looks like we're good?!

In other news, my 15-month-old Macbook Air is an absolute champ. I've dropped it multiple times, one time while sliding face first on some ice in the middle of Sweden... Macbook was in my hands without a case and got some gnarly scratches. This thing has taken all my abuse and continues to boot up every day! #crossesfingers

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#63
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be a completely different company and model of storage.

The drives that have been failing are the 64GB and 128GB Toshiba SSDs (TS064E and TS128E).

I've never been happy with a Toshiba product in my entire life. Seems like everything they make is garbage.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#64
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as heads up: - Time machine: is not reliable for network backups (yes, really) - CCC: needs a USB connected drive for a MBA - Crashplan: recurring payment service based in the US All of the above solution are useful, but none are reasonable and no brainer backup solutions for everyone, especially for MBA owners. As for now, bittorent sync with a mirror on the same network feels like the best solution IMO.

Could you elaborate on why Time Machine isn't reliable for network backups? That's my setup at the moment. (My 2012 MBA's SSD failed, but thankfully much of my data was automatically backed up to my NAS the previous night. The backup restored fine, too.)

Time Machine will regularly (as in once a month or two for my household of Macs, sometimes in as little as a week) complain "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you." Apple says don't backup to a NAS. Plenty of folks have reported problems.

Thankfully it's easy to fix: http://www.garth.org/archives/2011,08,27,169,fix-time-machin...

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#65
post #8

Can someone tell me how I can determine if my machine is affected if I don't have an OS X install? I've only got Debian available.

I'd keep a (small) OS X partition around for firmware updates. Unfortunately, it has to be on the internal drive. I haven't had much luck using an external drive to install firmware updates†, even when set as the startup disk.

† Other OS X software updates install fine on an external.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#66
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as heads up: - Time machine: is not reliable for network backups (yes, really) - CCC: needs a USB connected drive for a MBA - Crashplan: recurring payment service based in the US All of the above solution are useful, but none are reasonable and no brainer backup solutions for everyone, especially for MBA owners. As for now, bittorent sync with a mirror on the same network feels like the best solution IMO.

Time machine needs a HFS+ file system on your disk.

On a network volume it makes a disk image formatted in HFS+ into which it backs up.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on why Time Machine isn't reliable for network backups? That's my setup at the moment. (My 2012 MBA's SSD failed, but thankfully much of my data was automatically backed up to my NAS the previous night. The backup restored fine, too.)

Time Machine will regularly (as in once a month or two for my household of Macs, sometimes in as little as a week) complain "Time Machine completed a verification of your backups. To improve reliability, Time Machine must create a new backup for you." Apple says don't backup to a NAS. Plenty of folks have reported problems. Thankfully it's easy to fix: http://www.garth.org/archives/2011,08,27,169,fix-time-machin...

"Easy to fix" for a pretty small segment of their customers. This is about as far from the "Apple experience" as you can get.

Anybody have any idea about if this is any better in Mavericks?

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#68

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'…

Have you really be able to track crashes back to your SSD? This could be an issue with so many things.

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#69

As a PSA, if you can get the model number, the following SSDs are checked for in the update package: TS064E - Revisions TPSABBF0 and TPVABBF0 TS128E - Revisions TPSABBF0 and TPVABBF0 That is all.

Prior to updating firmware to 1.1 mine SSD was listed as: TS128E - TPVABBF0 But after updating the firmware now it is listed as: TS128E - TQAABBF0 But i am not redirected to apple website after installation and reboot. Am i suppose to take it to the store?

Re: MacBook Air Flash Storage Drive Replacement Program

#70

As a PSA, if you can get the model number, the following SSDs are checked for in the update package: TS064E - Revisions TPSABBF0 and TPVABBF0 TS128E - Revisions TPSABBF0 and TPVABBF0 That is all.

Prior to updating firmware to 1.1 mine SSD was listed as: TS128E - TPVABBF0 But after updating the firmware now it is listed as: TS128E - TQAABBF0 But i am not redirected to apple website after installation and reboot. Am i suppose to take it to the store?

As I mentioned in the comment, those are the models and revisions that are checked for in the package. It may be the case that those are the models that are eligible to receive the firmware update, rather than that all of them are in the failing set.
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