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Repair information on hard drives or hard disks. Hard drives are magnetic data storage devices. They are used in most desktop, laptop, and server due to their low cost and high data density.

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Is it possible to test the SSD cache? (Seagate SSHD)

I retired this drive from my Latitude a long time ago due to performance issues that were concerning since I had a WD Black 7200k RPM drive that would work and it was faster right away, confirming my theory the drive was giving me a problem. I’m seeing if this can be done since the SATA II drive Apple used in my Mac is so slow at times.

HOWEVER, what I removed was an SSHD, which has NAND flash on the board (ST500LM000) so I do not know if it was the NAND flash failing that did it and caused it to default to being a very slow hard drive. I’m suspecting bad NAND based on the fact it has good SMART data (the raw read error is reportedly high with Seagates in general and isn’t an issue:

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Is there a way I can test the NAND flash to see if the issue is whole drive degradation or it’s just an issue with the NAND flash?

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Here's a good reference: Seagate SSHD Thin Review (Gen3 500GB, ST500LM000)

And here the drives spec sheet Seagate - Laptop SSHD ST500LM000

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@danj what's probably going to happen is the MBP will register it as a SATA III drive so I almost certainly need the cable even though this is an auto sense drive.

I'm not expecting a major bump in performance but the Toshiba drive Apple used is terrible.

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Sadly, I don’t know of any way you could test the drive in a way that you could isolate out which area was at fault. Even if you did isolate it, what would you do to fix it?

The SSD is not available as a spare, The patters and heads are likewise not available.

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From my testing I did where I did a full sector scan (read) to get a general idea on how it stands over time, it seemed to drop uncomfortably low somewhat quickly. It didn't happen quickly but it wasn't taking so long it could be assumed to be slowing down as the drive ran through the test.

From how I understand it they work with bad SSD cache but get very slow. The lack of capacity doesn't help how long they last either.

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Are you sure the way you are testing is just altering the cache which is why you're seeing the slowness?

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I'm using the Hard Disk Sentenial surface test, which does a consistent run across the drive. If the drive wasn't already shelved for speed, I would be more okay with trusting it without checking.

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I added data that's hopefully less error prone. I used the Hard Disk Sentenial test since I've never had an issue but I generally don't mess with SSHD's since I'm not a huge fan of them. I'd rather have an SSD or a 7200k spinner, but this drive is a million times better then the horrible Toshiba Apple chose and I already own it so it won't cost me much more than the 2012 SATA cable.

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Nick will be eternally grateful.
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