I've been using an Intel X25-M SSD for 3 years and it "failed" 3 times. Every time I've been able to make it usable again with the same procedure: - Boot under a Linux live CD that includes a NTFS driver (for example, ubuntu's "try ubuntu" mode) - Mount the SSD in read-only mode (mount -t ntfs -o ro...) - Copy the disk's data to another disk. This will recover most data, except files that were being updated when the disk failed - Use "ATA Secure Erase" to completely erase the SSD: https://ata.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ATA_Secure_Erase - Repartition and reformat the SSD - Restore the disk from a backup. - Copy data that was recovered while the disk was mounted in read-only mode (to partially recover data that's more recent than the last backup) I'm not sure if that would work with other cases of SSD failures, but it could be a solution instead of buying a new SSD every time. In any case, you would still need a good backup strategy and use a non-SSD for documents (except those that really need fast IO).