SSD works fine on USB3.0 adapter but fails inside MacMini2012

[markosjal]

I recently purchased an SSD 500 GB to install in Late 2012 Mac Mini .

I was unfamiliar with the brand but took a chance. The brand is SomnAmbulist I see they are sold in many places.

My problem is that after installing OSX10.15 and latest Linux Mint Mate and running it a few days It started to become unresponsive on both Linux and OSX. Most of the time it would leave me looking at a spinning disk for a simple operation. I saw some messages in Linux that seemed to say that the disk was no longer available when I tried to shut it down.

I took the disk out and put it into a USB adapter case and ran disk utility and gparted on the partitions and errors were found on linux and Mac Partitions.

Then I ran it from the USB disk, WITH NO ISSUES

Later I returned it inside the Mac Mini Case and almost immediately had problems AGAIN!

AFter returning it to the external USB and testing exhaustively it works fine via USB3.0 adapter , consistently and reliably but returning to either port on mac Mini causes it to fail. I have tested on both the SATA ports on Mac mini with different cable for each port and have confirmed it is not a cable nor port issue. Mechanical HDDs work on both ports.

Is there possibly any tweak for the SATA port?

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sorry for the delayed response.

I have never heard of Somnambulist or Linux Mint until your post. Sounds like the SSD just isn't compatible with the internal SSD connector in the mini. I would work with their support directly if possible, or continue to run it with the external case and USB 3.0 adapter.

Sorry!

C

 

[MacsBug]

If you do a google search for SomnAmbulist SSD's many reviews on these claim that they are fake SSD's and they are very prone to failures and slow speeds.

I would recommend buying an SSD from a reputible manufacturer link Kingston, WD, Sandisk, etc..