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.

  •  Doombot1   ( @Doombot1@beehaw.org ) English
    3•1 year ago

    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.

  •  splendoruranium   ( @splendoruranium@infosec.pub ) English
    2•1 year ago

    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!