Solid State Drives-(Updated. 11/20)

NinerBikes wrote:
Damn, you guys are good! Noted for posterity. Flash drive memory fails too, only so many cycles out of it before it goes bad, I guess?

Technically, yes the flash chips in an SSD have a finite number of read/write/erase cycles, but it's in the millions. If the drive is really dead, it's more likely that some mechanical failure killed it, like a broken solder joint or trace. It could also be a virus or other malware nuked the boot sector rendering the missing operating system message.

v10superduty wrote:

I didn't see inside myself but local tech described drive like lower one in your illustration.
There must be an empty void in the body because his first thought when he opened it up was the drive was missing cause he was looking for something like your top pic.
He contacted Sony for info, figured it out and they suggested could be warranty so I sent off to Sony. During my call to them for address/procedure was stated probably no warranty but I sent it anyway....

NOW it gets good; or scary!!! :S

I e-mailed this morn for status report and they say the tech says its missing the HHD.. :h :h
So I sent message explaining its SSD, not HHD, (maybe they use that terminology for all drives?) and their support had told my local tech its integrated with the mainboard.
Wow, it will be amazing if this works out.
Appreciate the info that has been given here. Really helps me understand this better.
Years ago I has successfully replaced a HHD in a Dell XP but since there was a glimmer of warranty and I was so unfamiliar with this I sent to Sony factory repair. That may prove to be a mistake.
Will update once I hear.
I think I may understand now why Sony sold off their computer division.. :B

Could be the laptop is capable of supporting both an M.2 drive and a SATA drive, sometimes a manufacturer will use a small 64GB ssd along with a 300-500GB sata hdd to cut costs.

Hopefully they get it back to you in working order without enduring any crazy costs.