SSD230S · MTE250H · JetDrive 855 · ESD310
Transcend SSD data recovery. Including JetDrive modules from older Macs.
Transcend's JetDrive modules replaced Apple's blade SSDs in 2010 to 2017 Macs, and that is where we see the name most: a JetDrive 820 or 850 in a MacBook Air or Pro that has stopped. The rest of the range covers 2.5-inch SATA, M.2 SATA and NVMe drives, the ESD portables, and a large industrial line, on Silicon Motion controllers with Transcend's own firmware for the most part. No Transcend-specific fault was documented in our research. One Transcend SSD, a JetDrive included, is £300 + VAT after the free look, fixed in writing, 3–5 days at the bench.
Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
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Models we see, family by family.
Which kind of drive is it →| Family | Models | Controller commonly reported |
|---|---|---|
| SATA | SSD220S, SSD225S, SSD230S, SSD370S, SSD420, MTS400, MTS800, MTS820 M.2 SATA | Silicon Motion SM2258 and SM2259 · older Marvell |
| NVMe | MTE110S, MTE220S, MTE240S, MTE250H, MTE300S, MTE400S 2242 | Silicon Motion SM2262, SM2263 |
| JetDrive | JetDrive 500, 520, 720, 725 (SATA blades); JetDrive 820, 825, 850, 855 (PCIe blades) | Silicon Motion and Marvell, on Apple's connectors |
| Portable and industrial | ESD310, ESD370, ESD380; MTS and SSD470 industrial, CFast and mSATA | Silicon Motion; industrial firmware |
What tends to go wrong on a Transcend.
Transcend symptoms, and how long each gives you.
Not listed? Describe it on the form →What the message means on a Transcend.
Describe yours to us →| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Shown at 0GB, or with a name such as SM2258AB or SM2262 | A Silicon Motion controller in ROM mode | Bench work; do not initialise it |
| Not detected at all | Firmware will not load | Diagnostic-state work |
| Pending sectors flicking between 0 and 1 (MX500 and others) | A known reporting quirk on some SMI firmware | Not in itself a failure; back up and watch it |
| Copies stall and error | Weak flash pages | Image now |
From the box arriving to your files going back.
Work we have closed →Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free
A case number goes on it the day the parcel is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually failed before anything else happens. The drive is read on our own equipment, never in a computer that might send it a TRIM command. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.
Powered on our terms
Every power-on gives a failing SSD another chance to run its own housekeeping. Here the drive is brought up in the controller's diagnostic state instead, which lets the bench speak to the flash directly and keeps damaged firmware out of the conversation.
Past the fault, to the map
Working code is loaded into the controller's memory rather than onto the flash, the service area is read, and the translation table is rebuilt from what is there. Where the controller itself is dead, the chips are read one by one and the controller's scrambling and error correction are undone in software.
A full image, then the volume
Nothing is worked on live. The whole drive is imaged once, weak pages retried in their own passes, and the file system is put back together on the image. Encrypted volumes are unlocked there too, with the key you supply, and never on the original.
You see the file list before you pay
What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.
From the bench
- A JetDrive comes out of the Mac. Send the blade alone; the machine is not needed.
- Industrial parts may have no public diagnostic state. We say at the free look whether a given drive can be taken on.
- A Silicon Motion drive in ROM mode announces the controller, which tells us the family before the parcel is even open. It is not a new drive and it is not empty.
- Many SMI drives carry no DRAM, so the map is on the flash and exposed to a bad shutdown; the DRAM-less SM2258XT and SM2259XT are common in budget 2.5-inch drives.
- The maker's tool cannot help a drive in this state. It talks through the operating system, which the drive is not talking to.
What helps, and what harms.
Do this much first
- Say no to Initialise, Erase or Format
- Power it off and leave it off
- Note the exact name and size it shows
- Send the bare drive
What sets us back
- Running the maker's tool or a factory tool
- Creating a partition to see whether it works
- Running recovery software against a 0GB device
- Restarting it repeatedly
Questions answered before you commit.
Can you recover a JetDrive from a MacBook Air?
Yes. It comes out like Apple's original blade and is read on an adapter for the connector. The Mac stays at home, and the deleted-file odds are often better than on an internal drive because TRIM is off on third-party Mac SSDs unless it was turned on deliberately.
Which controller does a Transcend SSD use?
More than one, depending on the model and the year. The free look identifies the controller family before anything is attempted, and that decides the route in: a Phison drive, a Silicon Motion drive and an in-house design are each recovered differently.
What does it cost?
£300 + VAT for one drive after the free look, fixed in writing before any chargeable work. On most jobs no data means no bill.
How long does it take?
3–5 days at the bench after the free look. Priority handling is quoted separately when you ask for it.
Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.
Nothing gets worse while the power is off.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. On most jobs an invoice only follows the data. Until that list reaches you, leave the drive switched off.