In an awkwardly worded statement, the laptop manufacturer has alerted owners of its 13-inch Macbook Pro that SSD firmware flaws are causing serious data corruption and even complete failure.
Apple has determined that a limited number of 128GB and 256GB solid-state drives (SSD) used in 13-inch MacBook Pro (non Touch Bar) units have an issue that may result in data loss and failure of the drive. 13-inch MacBook Pro units with affected drives were sold between June 2017 and June 2018.
Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will service affected drives, free of charge. Apple recommends having your drive serviced as soon as possible.
A few things stand out here:
- The firmware update means an Apple “technician will run a utility”
- The repair process is to backup your data, update the SSD firmware in a destructive manner, and then restore all your data from backup. And this begs the question why someone can’t do the update themselves if it means restoring a backup to a fresh OS install. Apple ought not be worried about data loss or failure in the process as that’s a guaranteed outcome. Are they concerned the firmware update would brick the laptop, or that the utility would grant too much authority to the end user?
- Data already destroyed by the faulty SSD can not be recovered
- Anyone who already paid for this service can get a refund. Although at the same time, it only “covers affected MacBook Pro models for 3 years after the first retail sale of the unit”. The repair will not be free if your SSD has faults beyond 3 years…