The point of the parent comment was not about saving data from the drive, but that the devices are landfill material once they hit tbw limits on their drives, even if they were otherwise in good condition.
> The M1 boot process requires a working SSD to boot macOS. The SSD contains a Signed System Volume that is cryptographically sealed by Apple. No seal, no bootable System.
> So if the internal drive on your M1 Mac fails completely, even an external bootable drive won't boot. Yep, your Mac is bricked.
The point of the parent comment was not about saving data from the drive, but that the devices are landfill material once they hit tbw limits on their drives, even if they were otherwise in good condition.