Storage drive fault ' Is this valid reason to need new storage drive: 'a fault with the storage drive requiring replacement'

You do have the 2017 model. OWC does not show anything on their site about the internal SSD being replaceable. I did some research to verify my assumption that the SSD is not replaceable. It is soldered to the motherboard as is the RAM. Neither can be replaced. The SSD may be an Apple proprietary part making it difficult or impossible to obtain.

All I can tell you is that there is a company that could do the job for you at a reasonable price but I cannot provide the information here. Apple forbids it, and the mods would remove it before you would see it. All I can suggest is doing a search at YouTube for "Apple Mac repair."

slmumphy wrote:

Could a storage drive fault possibly be caused by 'turning a Mac off whilst it is saving data to the disk'?

Absolutely! In fact, if the disk is a HDD, then such an event could permanently damage the device, if there was a r/w head crash. Otherwise, the event could cause data loss and other disk corruption. On an SSD, one cannot have a head crash but an electronic error could cause serious data loss.

The likelihood of damage or corruption is very high if the disk is performing a write action, but less likely if it is doing a read action other than a head crash. Most modern HDDs protect against head crashes by immediately parking the heads. But there is nothing one can do about write activity during an abnormal shutdown.

It could damage the disk but not the entire computer. Assuming the computer is repairable, a 512GB SSD costs an average of $200.00 USD today. Depending upon the repair costs for labor, the total cost may be easily under $400.00 for an out-of-warranty job. New Apple laptops since around 2018, or so, the SSDs are not socketed nor are they standard, available, and equivalent parts. Only Apple could repair them by replacing the whole motherboard, which is very expensive. Older models have socketed SSDs, most of which are easily obtained and are user-replaceable. Those models are much less costly to fix.

There is no set answer to the question you posed. Each situation is different, and each would need to be evaluated before deciding how to proceed. There are alternatives to replacing motherboards but we cannot discuss them on these forums.

Do you know the exact model you have? If it's a 2017 MB or MBP, then it has an SSD storage device. According to OWC, the SSD cannot be replaced unless it's a Late-2016 MBP. If it's a 2017 MBA, then it can be replaced.

Note that you could operate the computer using an external SSD or HDD. Overall portability is affected but it won't be a total waste.