Macbook air ssd sucks! (bad warranty too)

I have a late 2010 Macbook Air 11".

Kept in excellent condition and used with care.

Just 66 days after warranty expired (of course!) the ssd died.

What's worse is the poor way in which the system handles this. I get white screen of death (WSOD) and chime on boot since the stupid system gets stuck only looking for HD to boot from instead of timing out and looking for the USB stick or external drive.

You have to open the computer (again with Apples annoying pentalobe security screws), unhook the HD and THEN boot using the usb key. Once it boots you can go to preferences and set the startup target as usb volume.
After this you can reconnect the drive.

After all this annoyance I could confirm that the drive (1.2 year old device with no F$#@$ing moving parts) was dead.

The cost for replacement?? $601.15!!!!!!!!

This is completely unacceptable.

Of course I am going to buy a pentalobe screwdriver from ifixit and a 180GB (larger and faster than the apple one) from OWC and fix it myself for half the price.

I think the drives in apple products should be 5 year warranty and this is unacceptable for them not to offer a free replacement.

Are you just venting...or are you serious??? Kind of a pretty harsh first post on Mac-Forums! Sorry to hear about the problem...but things break.

You mentioned..."Just 66 days after warranty expired (of course!) the ssd died.". It could have happened:

- 1 day after the warranty expired
- 180 days later
- or 1 year later

...in any of these cases would it have been any less/more tragic than 66 days??

An expired warranty is an expired warranty. There always was the extended warranty option (3 years)...but what if the SSD died 1 day after the 3 year warranty expired?? Stuff happens.

Again...sorry to hear about this. SSD's are expensive...and having a professional do the replacement (versus DIY)...is expensive as well.

- Nick

If I buy a $1200 computer I expect to get more than 14 months use out of it without having to pay an additional $400 for apple care or $600 for a replacement Ssd.

Also if I had bought another brand of computer there likely wold have been a drive inside from say WD or Seagate that had a 5 year warranty.

If my drive had broken 1 day after a three year warranty I could have at least said got three years out of an expensive machine.

I am not venting, just sharing an experience (especially on how the startup system sucks and needs to be tricked to work!).

Apple have a lot of money and they are trying to maintain an image of "superior" quality. If this is the case they should offer longer warranties on their products to demonstrate how confident they are in their quality otherwise people like myself will complain bitterly if expensive devices have a very short life span.

Unfortunately, when a SATA device fails, it's frequently the case that the machine won't fully POST until it's pulled off the chain.

That's quite discouraging that yours failed in such a short timeframe. It certainly should have lasted longer than a little over 14 months, even in hard usage. If it were mine, I'd be furious as well - perhaps it's worth a call to Apple directly, rather than dealing with the Genius Bar drones.

cwa107 said:

Unfortunately, when a SATA device fails, it's frequently the case that the machine won't fully POST until it's pulled off the chain.

That's quite discouraging that yours failed in such a short timeframe. It certainly should have lasted longer than a little over 14 months, even in hard usage. If it were mine, I'd be furious as well - perhaps it's worth a call to Apple directly, rather than dealing with the Genius Bar drones.

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Already went to the Genius bar (had to since I can't find a pentalobe screwdriver without waiting 2weeks mail order) and they were the ones who confirmed the drive was dead. They also thought it was BS and recommended I call Apple to see what I could negotiate. I talked to a senior Appler support representative but there was nothing he could or was willing to do about the situation.

The only reasonable course of action at this point is to buy a $300 OWC drive which will actually be faster and larger than the apple drive and install it myself.
I also think it is important to let other people know about this incident and if it is happening to lot's of other people they should make a fuss.
Apple is too rich and too big now and need to make more of an effort not to lose once loyal customers.

Where is apple care $400 for a Macbook Air? Apple has it for $249 and you can buy it cheaper elsewhere like Amazon. Lucky for you it is an older Air where you can actually replace the drives. The newer Airs - everything is soldered to the board.

My rule of thumb on warranties is - if it is something that gets moved around at all - buy the warranty. If after 3 years it breaks - you got good use out of it - and newer stuff will catch your eye anyway.

You could see who makes the drive - they may be willing to replace the drive for you if you call the drive manufacturer directly.

Honestly - the drive is the first thing I've replaced in my MBP (not air) - and I don't consider it part of the warranty because they fail so often. It is also part of the reason I switched to Mac - the Time Machine backup is super easy and I can just restore my computer if I replace a drive.

OWC is a great place to buy any Mac hardware.

It is good you are pointing it out - everyone thinks SSDs are indestructible but even though there are no moving parts - they can still fail.

IvanLasston said:

Where is apple care $400 for a Macbook Air?

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Maybe it was not exactly $400 but it was definitely more than in the U.S. (I am in Canada

My rule of thumb on warranties is - if it is something that gets moved around at all - buy the warranty. If after 3 years it breaks - you got good use out of it - and newer stuff will catch your eye anyway.

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I think this is a wise approach I should adopt

You could see who makes the drive - they may be willing to replace the drive for you if you call the drive manufacturer directly.

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I believe the OEM is Toshiba. Worth a shot but I am not hopeful.

Honestly - the drive is the first thing I've replaced in my MBP (not air)

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My MBP drive died too! Fortunately I had upgraded to 3rd part WD and their warranty service was awesome. Sight unseen they sent me a replacement drive within two weeks.

the Time Machine backup is super easy and I can just restore my computer if I replace a drive.

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I use a mobile account and back up regularly. This still does not gain back the downtime on this computer which will add up to over a week once I express order all the parts needed.

Um, did you read here on the forums and HOLD the OPTION Key at startup?

I see under a year Dells, HP, Compaq, Gateway, ACERs die all the time as a computer tech. AND ACER refused to HONOR my 1 year warranty on my Netbook with a Defective Display (that 1000's of people had issues with) and made me pay full price for a new one and I had 6 months warranty left.

intellijel said:

If I buy a $1200 computer I expect to get more than 14 months use out of it without having to pay an additional $400 for apple care or $600 for a replacement Ssd.

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I totally understand...I would be upset as well.

The only thing I would add is...SSD's are a newer technology. They certainly do not have the years & years & years of manufacturing & design improvements that traditional hard drives have...so SSD's most likely will have higher failure rates than "traditional" HD's.

Going the SSD from OWC...and installing it yourself would certainly be the route I would go to save money. But maybe you can still make some phone calls to Apple...and see if they will "do the right thing"...since this SSD shouldn't have failed shortly after 1 year.

Good luck,

- Nick

intellijel said:

Also if I had bought another brand of computer there likely wold have been a drive inside from say WD or Seagate that had a 5 year warranty.

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That is not a correct statement. Drives inside branded computers are labeled OEM, and the serial numbers are associated with an OEM batch, so if you try to go to WD or Seagate to get a drive replaced after factory warranty you will be kicked back to the manufacturer such as Dell. If your warranty is expired on the machine you won't get the added benefit of the usual exceptional hard drive warranty.

Sorry your drive croaked, but bottom line is that electronics fail every darn day.

The 180GB @OWC is on sale for $265US right now which IMO is a decent deal.

I think this whole thing speaks to why I always buy Apple Care for computers. Never for phones (they make a new one every year), but computers get the nod.

Where are you in the World? If in the UK there are 2 avenues you could take. I can't remember the correct terms now, so somebody could put me right:
1. There is something called "fit for purpose", which could give you up to 3 years for such mis-haps to be rectified by the manufacturer.
2. There is also the EU rule which could give you up to 6 years.

These are grey areas, and, fortunately I haven't had to try them, but I would if faced with your situation.

He's in Canada.

But yes, in the UK the consumer laws are such that you can take a company to court if a product fails outside of the warranty but in a shorter timeframe than one would reasonably expect the product to last under normal useage.

We still buy extended warranties though - basically it means paying for a hassle free experience rather than going down the route of letters and small claims court proceedings.

hmmmm...glad I read this post. I have been debating whether or not to buy the applecare for my MBA I got this Christmas. I have the next 10.5 months to decide, but this post has helped in this. I will buy it.

If you used the same tone in speech with the Apple employees (on the phone and at the store) as you are here, then I am not surprised with their response.