Thursday, August 17th 2023
Western Digital in Trouble Over Failing Portable SSDs
Over the past few months there have been reports of issues with SanDisk portable SSDs and Western Digital released a firmware update in May that was meant to prevent the drives from "unexpectedly disconnect from a computer". However, it appears that this firmware update didn't solve the problem and Western Digital is now being taken to court over drives not just having disconnect issues, but also randomly failing. The court case is expected to become a class action suit, as the plaintiff claims that the issue of failing drives affect tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people in the USA.
The models included in the complaint includes the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Extreme Portable, Extreme Pro Portable and WD My Passport SSD. A further firmware update was released in July, which is said to have made the issues even worse, with data being lost on drives or being inaccessible to drive owners. In some cases the drives go into read only mode, but sometimes this means that the drives become inaccessible to the OS, which in turn also means dataloss to the user. Time will tell how this plays out, but it's not looking great for Western Digital, but it wouldn't be the first time a storage device maker has been taken to court over failing products.
Sources:
Complaint in PDF format, via the Register
The models included in the complaint includes the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Extreme Portable, Extreme Pro Portable and WD My Passport SSD. A further firmware update was released in July, which is said to have made the issues even worse, with data being lost on drives or being inaccessible to drive owners. In some cases the drives go into read only mode, but sometimes this means that the drives become inaccessible to the OS, which in turn also means dataloss to the user. Time will tell how this plays out, but it's not looking great for Western Digital, but it wouldn't be the first time a storage device maker has been taken to court over failing products.
45 Comments on Western Digital in Trouble Over Failing Portable SSDs
WD makes it own SSD controllers and obviously its own firwmwares.
It's unlikely to be related to the ASMedia bridge chip they use in these drives, as then other portable SSDs with the same bridge chips should have similiar issues and there have been no such reports.
I've also used WD HDDs almost exclusively. SSDs, I got Samsung and Crucial, they offered the best bang for the buck at the time I was in the market for them. But keep in mind this isn't about internal SSDs, it's about external ones. Those use a different controller, bridging NAND to USB.
Since bridge chips have been known to cause all sorts of weird, unexpected issues over the years, so I would tend to believe that's where the problem is occurring...
Supposedly the drives inside is the WD Black SN750, although this is an older model.
www.thessdreview.com/hardware/portable-ssds/sandisk-extreme-pro-portable-ssd-review-1tb/
The WD My Passport seems to be some kind of a WD Blue drive, which apparently applies to some non Pro Sandisk Extreme drives too.
www.anandtech.com/show/16120/sandisk-extreme-portable-ssd-v2-and-wd-my-passport-ssd-2020-review
I have seen fewer of these of the couple of months but at one point I was getting at least 2-3 a day at my location. At our main lab I know they were getting at least 3-5 a day and they get between 25-50 recoveries a day.
And that's on top of the other long-term external drive issue : "Buy our Extreme Ultra Evo Select Endurance Plus Super Pro USB stick / SD card and reward us for hiding what technology we actually use (MLC vs TLC vs QLC), or tell you which 'Ultra' one is going to die after a week in a 24/7 constant write GoPro even on the premium models!" It's WAY passed time the industry were all forced to list flash + controller specs for all external flash drives, not just internal SSD's.
meanwhile, all those 10,000x 870 evo (and now 970 evo plus) failures over there at samsung ...
Your own caddy would most likely use the same ASMedia chip as these drives from WD. There are some options from Realtek and JMicron as well though.
Part of the problem is they have not acknowledged anything publicly yet.