Did KSP2 just brick my SSD?

[WillWe]

So I just purchased and was installing KSP2 on an SSD with my Steam Library. I wait for it to download, and all of a sudden my desktop's toolbar appears and reappears... And my SSD is no longer found or recognized by my computer. Games that were on that SSD are no longer found to be installed or playable. A similar issue I had when my other SSD bit the bullet earlier last month, working fine one moment, then it just no longer shows up anywhere on my computer, or in disk formatting.

The only fix was to get a brand-new SSD..., Though is there any technical wizardry I can do on my end to find my SSD again? Because the last time I had this issue it wasn't "posting" and decided to commit honourable seppuku upon itself.

[WillWe]

The SSDs I use are Western Digital SA510 1 TB drives, just in case anyone needed clarification.

[X-SR71]

yes it's the devs fault

[Niroc]

Have you tried installing another game of similar size? It sounds like your SSD might be having a larger problem if it's bricking it's self trying to install a new game.

[skunkmonkey]

I'd be more inclined to think that your SSD drive died a natural death, and KSP2 just happened to be the program that killed it.
How full is/was your SSD? SSD drives should never get more than half full if you want to achieve maximum lifespan. You should also minimize writes to an SSD drive. They are best suited to data that needs to be read a lot, but not necessarily written very often. Using them for your OS and a few key programs only is pretty typical.
Here's a website to help understand some other ways you can extend SSD life:
https://www.diskpart.com/ssd-management/ssd-lifespan-0528.html

[WillWe]

Originally posted by skunkmonkey:

I'd be more inclined to think that your SSD drive died a natural death, and KSP2 just happened to be the program that killed it.
How full is/was your SSD? SSD drives should never get more than half full if you want to achieve maximum lifespan. You should also minimize writes to an SSD drive. They are best suited to data that needs to be read a lot, but not necessarily written very often. Using them for your OS and a few key programs only is pretty typical.
Here's a website to help understand some other ways you can extend SSD life:
https://www.diskpart.com/ssd-management/ssd-lifespan-0528.html

Didn't have too many games on it, It was probably about a third of the way full, bought the drive in August, but it bricked itself after christmas, it was a defective drive. Maybe it was from the same batch?

[KROM]

Is the ssd M.2? is it plugged into the motherboard or is it on a sata cable, if it's on a sata cable I take it you have tried changing this cable? trying a new one, if the ssd is plugged into the pc motherboard, check if you have a secondary slot on the motherboard and try that one on it's own to see if you have a defective motherboard,. slot
it's highly unlikely that you have been unlucky enough to have had two faulty ssd drives.
let me know how you get on.

[WillWe]

Originally posted by KROM:

Is the ssd M.2? is it plugged into the motherboard or is it on a sata cable, if it's on a sata cable I take it you have tried changing this cable? trying a new one, if the ssd is plugged into the pc motherboard, check if you have a secondary slot on the motherboard and try that one on it's own to see if you have a defective motherboard,. slot
it's highly unlikely that you have been unlucky enough to have had two faulty ssd drives.
let me know how you get on.

Went down to best buy and got a replacement, same issue as last time, drive wasn't posting, not being recognized, straight up -dead-. Same WD SA510 SSD. See if this one lasts any longer!

[A Terrible Modder]

is your drive overheating and killing itself ?i have seen that happen with plenty of ssd's mainly m.2 drives without proper cooling measures. installing stuff does put the most strain on drives in my experience

[Echo_Hotel]

Just a small SSD lifespan hint. Flash chips like to be warm, they work best hot and suffer more wear while working cold, SSD Controller chips on the other hand don't take heat so well and will start to throttle if too hot.
On a sided note there was a news story about how WD lost something in the range of like a million chips due to "contamination" in their factories (probably dust) back in February of '22. The "survivors" making their way through the supply chain might explain your issues.
Disclaimer: I am talking out of my ass and have two WD m.2 drives in my PC humming along just fine.

[kbmodigity]

You may want to try a 3rd party hard drive monitor. I personally like hard disk sentinal. its free and shows you the health of all your drives no matter what the type. Great for knowing if one of your drives is failing. Id post a link for it but I think thats against the TOS rules. Its easy enough to find if you search for it.

[Munkey]

I really doubt the game had anything to do with drive failure, especially if you're just downloading it and haven't even launched the game yet.

If you've had two relatively new SSDs die back to back I would look into the possibility of it being a problem with either overheating, your cables, power supply, or motherboard. If possible I would try the drive in a different computer or connected via USB adapter/enclosure to see if it's actually dead or if the motherboard just isn't detecting the SATA ports.
Your taskbar disappearing and reappearing is probably just Windows hanging as it tries to access a drive that's not responding.

[Lunakibby]

Definitely not the game, just an unfortunate timing that the SSD did its last breath while you were downloading the game.