Western Digital in Trouble Over Failing Portable SSDs

[Prima.Vera]

I just use ssd's externally connected via a usb cable.

Same. I bought a cheap 1TB PCI-E 4 drive with a 10$ USB-C 3.2 case, and couldn't ask for more speed/mobility wise.

 

[Ferrum Master]

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.

Sad to see only few people really understand the sauce of things...

I own RTL and ASM based USB to nvme readers due to my work nature... firmware development for ASM ones pretty much ceased and can have problems with modern drivers, ASM really exhibits some problems with certain controllers. RTL ones do update very often, especially Sabrent does the job well. I have JMicron for SATA only... it does what it does, it has become a rare used item these days.

Other than that... using external OS boot drives... Samsung T7 has proven to be the perf/price king. It is used daily for repair tasks and diagnostics. So far, no problems.

 

[Tahagomizer]

Some companies take planned obsolescence seriously. SanDisk manufactures drives which have an actual "death clock" and brick themselves after 40 000 hours.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", but they did it more than once so I'm not inclined to believe it was an honest mistake.

 

[bug]

Some companies take planned obsolescence seriously. SanDisk manufactures drives which have an actual "death clock" and brick themselves after 40 000 hours.
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", but they did it more than once so I'm not inclined to believe it was an honest mistake.

Any sources for that 40,000 hours claim?

 

[Tahagomizer]

Any sources for that 40,000 hours claim?

SSD drive 40,000-hour "death bug" continues to kill discs

SSD death bug continues to catch customers unaware. The SanDisk drives used in a range of OEM servers brick at 40,000 hours

www.thestack.technology

SSD Drives’ 40,000-Hour Death Bug Threatens Enterprises in 2022

SSD drives’ 40,000-hour death bug is a firmware defect in some SAS SSD manufactured by SanDisk. Here is everything you need to know.

www.stellarinfo.com

Also, Cisco Field Notice concerning SSDs dying at the 40k hour mark:

Field Notice: FN70545 - SSD Will Fail at 40,000 Power-On Hours - BIOS/Firmware Upgrade Recommended

Certain Solid State Drive (SSD) models will experience data loss.

www.cisco.com

Many of those, if not most, are built by SanDisk or using their controllers.

I mostly look at enterprise drives but they do exactly the same with consumer hardware:

SanDisk’s silence deafens as high-profile users say Extreme SSDs still broken

SanDisk is ignoring lost data claims. It's time to ignore the company's SSDs.

arstechnica.com

 

[bug]

That's a firmware bug, not planned obsolescence. Why would you bug your own controllers in drives you don't actually sell? That will not yield more sales, it will get you kicked from your partner's suppliers list.

 

[Tahagomizer]

Usually planned obsolescence is done to encourage more sales. Maybe they felt that their market position is strong enough to attempt such shenanigans... or their dev team is full of dumb people who can't be arsed to do basic QC and can only blindly copy code known to be defective. Since the same bug is present in products across different segments and for several years, I say it's a deliberate action. No developer is that stupid, so malice on the management level seems more likely in this case.

 

[bug]

Usually planned obsolescence is done to encourage more sales. Maybe they felt that their market position is strong enough to attempt such shenanigans... or their dev team is full of dumb people who can't be arsed to do basic QC and can only blindly copy code known to be defective. Since the same bug is present in products across different segments and for several years, I say it's a deliberate action. No developer is that stupid, so malice on the management level seems more likely in this case.

Got it.

 

[R0H1T]

Usually planned obsolescence is done to encourage more sales. Maybe they felt that their market position is strong enough to attempt such shenanigans... or their dev team is full of dumb people who can't be arsed to do basic QC and can only blindly copy code known to be defective. Since the same bug is present in products across different segments and for several years, I say it's a deliberate action. No developer is that stupid, so malice on the management level seems more likely in this case.

No, they can get sued for this to the tune of billions in US or EU very easily if it were as simple as you're claiming!

 

[natr0n]

I have a 1tb version of that. I use it for storage of games. I never update or even think of updating any drive if it works out the box.

 

[kapone32]

Seagate sell an Expansion series. When it was introduced it came with USB 3.0. The drive would last on average for 3 months. As a result those drives quickly became cheaper than regular internal drives. The thing was the drive is just a regular SATA based HDD and at the time they came with 7200 RPM drives. Unfortunately most of the 2.5 drives especially come with a non standard interface making them unusable. I will say that a friend gave me a 2TB WD Passport drive (he works at Costco) years ago that still works fine.

 

[tommo1982]

Possibly QLC installed in these drives? I own a AData portable SSD and I don't remember it having QLC was advertised on their website. I found it somewhere else.

 

[MarsM4N]

Deja vu, it seems. In case you're wondering what I am talking about, let me refresh your grey cells.

In 2020 Western Digital released the WD_Black P50 Game Drive SSD, the (back then) fastest external SSD with a USB 3.2 Gen2x2 connection and transfer speeds of up to 20 Gbit/s. The only issue was that the drive achieved said speeds only in their product sheets. In real life the drive would disconnect when used via the USB 3.2 Gen2x2 connection! ComputerBase did report on it and even contacted Western Digital for a statement as you can see in their follow ups.

TL;DR: after 2,5 years and several firmware updates the issue is still not fixed, instead WD put the blame on the user setups (which is basically debunked by testing on different setups). The cherry on the cake: the drive is still on sale by WD. The later released WD_Black P40 Game Drive SSD doesn't have the issue. Everything is pointing to the controller (ASMedia) being the issue, which can't get fixed with a firmware update.

WD Black P50 Game Drive mit USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 im Test

Die externe SSD WD Black P50 Game Drive bietet als erste ihrer Art USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. Doch die Schnittstelle läuft noch nicht rund.

www.computerbase.de

Consumer protection is apparently insufficient for to-big-to-fail international companies that keep ripping off folks with trash products. QA reduced to increase shareholder revenue. Governments not interested to go after them. The only thing you can do as a consumer: never buy at release! Do your own research. Often user reviews are more insightful than "professional reviews" who quite often don't report or report delayed on issues because of the "Conflict of Interest". Don't award them with your hard earned money, spend wisely.

 

[RJARRRPCGP]

Usually planned obsolescence is done to encourage more sales. Maybe they felt that their market position is strong enough to attempt such shenanigans... or their dev team is full of dumb people who can't be arsed to do basic QC and can only blindly copy code known to be defective. Since the same bug is present in products across different segments and for several years, I say it's a deliberate action. No developer is that stupid, so malice on the management level seems more likely in this case.

I did the math and got what would be known as the "4.6-year timebomb".

 

[Tahagomizer]

No, they can get sued for this to the tune of billions in US or EU very easily if it were as simple as you're claiming!

Fines and litigation are just cost of doing business and this cost is always lower than gains from such activity, thanks to ubiquitous corruption lobbying. The same is true for any company knowingly doing illegal things, from Ford choosing to let people burn alive in Pinto to Facebook manipulating users to keep them riled up.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Fines and litigation are just cost of doing business and this cost is always lower than gains from such activity, thanks to ubiquitous corruption lobbying. The same is true for any company knowingly doing illegal things, from Ford choosing to let people burn alive in Pinto to Facebook manipulating users to keep them riled up.

Ford didn't CHOOSE to let people burn alive in the Pinto, should they get rear-ended. That was a horrible design flaw - even though I wonder how they agreed on such a troubled design to begin with - that they promptly corrected. But the damage had already been done by the time the updated/corrected design came out. Nobody wanted the ol' Pinto after that clusterfuck.

 

[Tahagomizer]

Ford didn't CHOOSE to let people burn alive in the Pinto, should they get rear-ended. That was a horrible design flaw - even though I wonder how they agreed on such a troubled design to begin with - that they promptly corrected. But the damage had already been done by the time the updated/corrected design came out. Nobody wanted the ol' Pinto after that clusterfuck.

Well, "In 1973, Ford's Environmental and Safety Engineering division developed a cost–benefit analysis entitled Fatalities Associated with Crash Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires for submission to the NHTSA in support of Ford's objection to proposed stronger fuel system regulation." Pinto was only recalled after NHTSA forced Ford to do it. There were 117 cases resulting from this whole fiasco and it's a well established fact that Ford knew all too well that the car was unsafe, but since making it safe would cost more than potential settlements they just didn't do it. It's generally how corporations work, they're obliged by law to pursue profit before anything else.

 

[bug]

Well, "In 1973, Ford's Environmental and Safety Engineering division developed a cost–benefit analysis entitled Fatalities Associated with Crash Induced Fuel Leakage and Fires for submission to the NHTSA in support of Ford's objection to proposed stronger fuel system regulation." Pinto was only recalled after NHTSA forced Ford to do it. There were 117 cases resulting from this whole fiasco and it's a well established fact that Ford knew all too well that the car was unsafe, but since making it safe would cost more than potential settlements they just didn't do it. It's generally how corporations work, they're obliged by law to pursue profit before anything else.

You didn't read that document, did you?

 

[Readlight]

SanDisk Extreme pssd flash drive works good, cant say anything good about other sd, usb drives.

 

[Chaitanya]

Some users seem to have gotten replacements, but not all, which makes it ever odder.
Supposedly the drives inside is the WD Black SN750, although this is an older model.

SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD Review (1TB) - The SSD Review

So we are going to take a look at a product today that has been out for some time. I have actually

www.thessdreview.com

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.

SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 and WD My Passport SSD (2020) Review

www.anandtech.com

Found this recent post on Canonrumours forum, it seems like even replacement drives are failing and the problem is much worse than WD claims it to be.

Western Digital releases firmware to address SanDisk drive failure and data loss

Western Digital has had a rough go with the SanDisk line of portable hard drives, with the latest issue causing drive failure and/or complete data loss. Western Digital has also been sued in California over this issue. Affected SanDisk Drives If you have one of these drives, it’s in your best...

www.canonrumors.com

 

[bug]

Found this recent post on Canonrumours forum, it seems like even replacement drives are failing and the problem is much worse than WD claims it to be.

Western Digital releases firmware to address SanDisk drive failure and data loss

Western Digital has had a rough go with the SanDisk line of portable hard drives, with the latest issue causing drive failure and/or complete data loss. Western Digital has also been sued in California over this issue. Affected SanDisk Drives If you have one of these drives, it’s in your best...

www.canonrumors.com

Usually, when there's no answer, it means the answer would damage the company more than the rumor mill already does. This is very unfortunate, both WD and SanDisk were always on my shortlist