My wife’s time machine SSD has been corrupted. Both of us back up with time machine infrequently since most of our use is email and research and entertainment since retirement.
I’m attaching a pdf of the report from Disk Utility. The disk is described as 3 elements in Disk Utility and I’ve kept the reports in order. The disk itself seemed to pass muster.
My question is would you recommend simply reformatting the disk and starting over or should the disk itself be replaced? The disk is a 2 TB Samsung SSD.
Running First Aid on “Samsung PSSD T7 Shield Media” (disk4).pdf (21.1 KB)
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A couple of questions based on your pdf.
Was there any behavior that prompted you to run Disk First Aid on that Time Machine disk?
When you say “the disk itself seemed to pass muster”, what did you use to determine that?
Was this Disk First Aid run while booted in macOS and while the disk was mounted? It appears so from your document. If so, I would try booting to macOS Recovery and running Disk First Aid on the TIme Machine disk from there. And, according to Howard Oakley, you should run the checks on the disk components in the following order:
- APFS Volumes
- APFS Container
- Disk
Upon looking at your document, there’s something that concerns me. This error message:
error: (oid 0x1548f) apfs_root: btn: dev_read_finish(259109, 1): Input/output error
That possibly could indicate a hardware issue. But given that this disk appears to be mounted, I’d run Disk First Aid from macOS Recovery before making a decision on next steps.
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It may sound silly, but I’d also want to check the USB cables and connectors. I like to keep a few high quality spare cables handy for scenarios like this.
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Definitely. If the cable isn’t bad, then this is a strong indication that you should replace the drive.
Definitely a good first test. Devices often come bundled with cheap cables and even good cables can go bad over time.
And it’s all cables, not just USB. Years ago, I had a FireWire tape drive that started acting flaky. When Inspected the cable (which had clear plastic insulation), I saw lots of green around the connector at one side. In other words, the copper was corroding. Swapping out that cable for a new one solved the problem.
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Good points. I’d also suggest when troubleshooting to connect the device directly to the Mac’s USB port if you aren’t already. That would rule out a hub and its cabling as a source of the problem.
I don’t mess around when I have any doubts about a backup disk. If it were me, I would get another T7 (or similar) and start using that for backup. That gives some breathing space to thoroughly test the existing T7 and sort out what is the problem.
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Thank you all! I’ve replaced the SSD with a new one and will begin again. The whole point of the back up is to limit risk. Trying to economize leaves me wondering what else may go wrong. I’ve had good luck with these Samsung SSD’s and… everything is temporary.
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That’s a very good plan. Look at it this way, if that old SSD turns out to be OK in further testing, you now have more fast storage.