SSD Recovery
Because SSDs have no moving parts, the data recovery process and diagnosis is different from that of a hard drive. There are no heads and no motor to cause mechanical faults. The main problems we see are related to electronic and firmware problems and the occasional formatted or deleted files problems.
Electronic problems
SSD drives use complex electronics that are susceptible to power spikes. While there are some built in protections, they cannot withstand high voltage spikes. The symptoms are that the drive is totally dead, the outcome is that the drive is not recognised by the computer. This could be the result of accidentally plugging in the wrong power supply.
Other electronic problems we see are related to failed components causing a short circuit on the circuit board. The symptoms of this are that the SSD gets very hot around the component that has failed, pinpointing the failure. We use state of the art infrared cameras as part of this process. Using very low voltages during this process to avoid any further damage. The bad component still gets hotter than the other components, so stands out clearly, even using less than one volt during analysis.
Firmware problems
We have seen various types of firmware faults, including faulty translator tables, SMART logs or bad block management tables. Most of them can be repaired by circumventing the bad modules. We do this by loading them into the SSD RAM in a special factory mode. This gets the SSD into a state where we can read data, albeit slower than normal.
Another common problem is bad blocks. Once an SSD develops a bad memory block or cell. The drive will stop reading when it attempts to read the bad area. Again, we circumvent this by gently reading all the good areas then vigorously attempting to over-read the bad blocks, ensuring the maximum possible data is recovered.
SSD Research
MJM Data Recovery Limited were one of the first data recovery companies in the world that started development on SSDs (solid State hard devices). Our research began in 2004 when the first commercial devices became available.
SSDs have no moving parts, and data is stored in memory chips, and so traditional physical data recovery techniques do not apply. The SSD needs to be repaired, either physically, by replacing faulty components, or by making firmware modifications, to get the SSD into a readable state.
Where physical repair is not possible, then the memory chips can be removed and the content read using specialist NAND reading equipment, this is a slow process as there is much work to be done to rebuild the data structures.
SATA SSD drive along with an NVMe SSD
Almost every new laptop you can buy will have an SSD installed. They are mainly of the NVMe type, pictured above. They are incredibly fast, reducing the boot up time, and save power, so the battery lasts longer, and becoming more reliable as the technology improves.
We can recover from all types of SSD
SSD systems
- Laptop computers
- MacBook and iMAC
- Desktop computers
- External drives
- Fusion drives
- Servers and RAID
Interfaces
- ATA/PATA
- SATA - All types
- SAS
- NGFF
- NVMe
- NGSFF
What is wear levelling?
Wear levelling is a method used by SSD manufacturers to equalise the writes on an SSD. The methodology behind it is; when a file is written to an SSD, the blocks used to store the data are selected by the block management controller built-in to the SSD. This keeps a record of the number of writes made to the blocks and selects blocks according to this value.
When a file is edited, the entire block containing the edit is moved to the next available block, levelling the wear on the device. The previous block is returned to the free blocks, ready for its next use.
SSD questions and answers
Definitely not recommended.
There is no point in defragmenting an SSD as, unlike a conventional hard disk drive, there is no seek latency. This is the time taken for a hard drive to move the heads to the next block, so it can read the data. SSDs have no seek-latency because memory blocks are directly accessible, and file fragments are read almost simultaneously.
The fastest possible that your computer will take. If you have an SSD slot on your motherboard, check the specs to see what type it is. Depending on how old the laptop is, It may have an mSATA, NGFF or NVMe slot. These are entirely different, so make sure you get this right. Also check the PCIe speed for the slot. There is no point buying a PCIe5 device if your motherboard only supports PCIe3 or 4.
If there are no M.2 slots on your motherboard, you are left with two options.
- A SATA SSD
- A PCIe card that supports either NGFF or NVMe
NVMe is the faster of the two for standard computers.
If you want to replace your laptop hard drive, you will most likely only have the option to replace with a SATA SSD model, but check the laptop specs to see if there are SSD connectors available on the motherboard. SATA is a practical option that should help save a bit of battery power too.
SSDs are definitely faster, and not as sensitive to external shock, such as dropping a laptop or an external hard disk drive.
SSDs use considerably less power than hard disk drives, so when installed on server machines can result with much lower running costs. For laptops, as mentioned previously, they can increase battery time and life as there are fewer recharge cycles.
One disadvantage is that SSDs have a limited write cycle, manufacturers claim several hundred thousand write cycles before they start to fail. So, realistically this should not be a problem, as long as you back up your data regularly, and check the backups are working.
SSDs are currently dearer per megabyte than hard disk drives, but the gap is narrowing.
I would suggest avoiding buying used SSDs as you will have no idea of the history of the drive, though many users sell their current SSDs when they have upgraded or bought a new computer. We also see a few data warehouses selling their old stocks after upgrading to newer and faster SSDs.