I've had half a dozen or more SSDs die in my lab. Without access to vendor tools (like a JTAG debugger and source for the controller) I'm not sure it's possibl

I've had half a dozen or more SSDs die in my lab. Without access to vendor tools (like a JTAG debugger and source for the controller) I'm not sure it's possible to tell whether the controller itself failed, or it just decided not to wake up because the flash was dead. But yeah, it sucks. Finally, I'd note that a lot of earlier SSD vendors came out of the USB device market, where they were used to making things that had the reliability requirements of your average Happy Meal toy. There are only 2.5 hard drive vendors or so at present, in large part because the ones who weren't fairly good at reliability are dead now.