What do you do with damaged drives?

My old laptop died so I took the SSD from it in hope to use it as external drive. I wanted to just overwrite it with dd for security but I decided to go with f3 as that would also give me the opportunity to test the drive. Sadly, bad results came back

Data OK: 111.75 GB (234352247 sectors)
Data LOST: 14.13 MB (28937 sectors)
       Corrupted: 14.11 MB (28905 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
     Overwritten: 16.00 KB (32 sectors)
Average reading speed: 250.69 MB/s

S.M.A.R.T. data if you're curious

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000b   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0013   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       359
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       995
161 Unknown_Attribute       0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       236
163 Unknown_Attribute       0x0003   100   100   050    Pre-fail  Always       -       96
165 Unknown_Attribute       0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       84
166 Unknown_Attribute       0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
167 Unknown_Attribute       0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       56
172 Unknown_Attribute       0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
173 Unknown_Attribute       0x0022   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       339
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0023   059   059   000    Pre-fail  Always       -       41 (Min/Max 33/41)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0000   100   100   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
241 Total_LBAs_Written      0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       1847
242 Total_LBAs_Read         0x0012   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       2424

Yeah, barely used. Just the LBAs written/read doesn't seem to make sense.

Any better ideas than paperweight?
I have tested it when it was new, it had no errors.

11 comments

Take them apart, add the magnets to my massive ball of old hard drive magnets, shed a tear, order a replacement, and then move on 😂

9
- Where are the magnets in an SSD?
  
  -9
  
  There aren't any
  
  1
I've used badblocks in the past to get an extra few years out of a failing drive in the past. But this was in the 64gb being a large drive days, and it only delayed problems

6
I can’t see the SMART data. May be something in there that gives me more information. Seems odd to me that an SSD would just go bad out of the blue - but if you’ve not turned on the drive or laptop in a while, that could be why. But honestly, it may just be fine after a full drive write - couldn’t hurt to try zeroing it w/ dd.

SSDs don’t like being left unpowered for more than a few months. All flash storage, actually. If you take out an SSD and stick it on a shelf for a few years, it’s unlikely that it’ll lose data - but it’s absolutely technically possible, and many companies won’t cover such data losses by warranty after a specified period of time.

3
From HDDs you at least had quality magnets and a bldc motor. SSDs go straight to electro trash.

2
I've seen a few artists online use dead electronics to make really amazing multimedia art! If you can't figure out a way to use it technically, maybe contact such kind of artist who could use the materials artistically?

2
I'd kinda trust it if it would detect the errors on its own, but now it's just returning corrupt data, so I'd ditch it

2
I'm a bit baffled that this hasn't popped up yet: Sell them on eBay.
Mark them as broken goods/scrap and re-iterate that fact very clearly in the product description. Broken drives often sell for up to 1/3 of the value of a working one, no scamming needed.

I cannot tell you why that is, but my theory is that a lot of folk buy up broken drives in private sales in the hopes that the "broken"-diagnosis is just user error and that the drive is actually fine. Knowing my users that might actually be true in many cases.

Edit: I didn't quite catch that you were not able to successfully overwrite your data. I guess that's a point against selling it. Always encrypt your drives, that way you can always sell them when they break!

2
- Aah that's a pretty good idea. But I'm guessing it's not the case for SSD's?
  
  1
  
  It absolutely is, at least from my observations!
  
  1
If it’s dead dead, I open it up and take out the magnet and use it on my fridge. Then destroy the disk.

1

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