Amid ongoing pressure to address allegations that SanDisk Extreme SSDs still erase data and become unopenable despite a firmware fix, Western Digital is facing a lawsuit over its storage drives. A lawsuit filed Wednesday accuses the company of knowingly selling defective SSDs.
Most often, the Extreme V2 and Extreme Pro V2 series of portable hard drives are from the Western Digital brand recommended Through technical review sites. If you’ve ever considered a flash drive, you’ve likely come across a popular series in your search.
However, several drive owners, including Ars Technica’s Lee Hutchinson, have encountered a problem where the drives seem to erase data and become unreadable. Lee saw two drives fill about halfway before showing read and write errors. Disconnecting and reconnecting showed that the drive was not formatted and empty. Wiping and formatting didn’t fix things.
Complaints about SanDisk’s drives were littered forums reddit (examples hereAnd hereAnd hereAnd here) for at least four months before Western Digital releases a firmware fix in late May. update page Claims Currently shipped products are not affected. But the company never noticed customer claims of missing data.
However, it did label the affected drives:
- SanDisk Extreme 4TB (SDSSDE61-4T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 4TB (SDSSDE81-4T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 2TB (SDSSDE81-2T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 1TB (SDSSDE81-1T00)
- Western Digital My Passport 4TB (WDBAGF0040BGY)
Subsequent reports from the edgewhich got a replacement SSD, and some Reddit users, though, he claimed the drives were still broken. Western Digital did not respond to requests for comment about the newly discovered grievances.
Now, she will have to answer to the legal system.
Filed a lawsuit against Western Digital
Nathan Crum sued [PDF] v. Western Digital in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, as spotted log. The Complaint seeks class action certification on behalf of persons who purchased a 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB SanDisk Extreme Pro, SanDisk Extreme, or Western Digital My Passport SSD designed, manufactured, distributed, promoted, and/or sold” since January 2023. Interestingly, the complaint includes SanDisk and My Passport devices that the companies did not list as affected.
According to the complaint, Krum purchased the 2TB Extreme Pro for $180 on Amazon. But “the drive has failed and/or the plaintiff can no longer trust the use of the drive and is therefore of no value to him. However, he cannot return it for a full refund, and he has spent the money to recover the lost data and/or to obtain a replacement.”
The complaint says that Western Digital “engaged in a scheme to mislead consumers” about the Extreme and My Passport SSDs and that both series of drives remain defective after the firmware update, “according to reports from individuals who installed this fix.”
The suit seeks compensation, including damages and legal fees.
Storage devices unable to store data securely?
Complaint text:
A series of SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD flash drives [SSDs] and thus inconsistent with its core functionality, as well as Western Digital’s core promise that [SSDs] They will do what they are supposed to do – store the data securely for later access.
Furthermore, the complaint claims that Western Digital knows these flaws and notes that business could be affected. Current Western Digital product page It advertises extreme drives that are suitable for photographers, and it is to push My Passport is suitable for creatives and companies. Many of the complaints Ars has seen online come from creatives such as video editors.
The complaint says Western Digital has put customers in an “impossible situation.”
Either they use these drives knowing that the drives may lose data without warning and cannot be recreated, and all the defendants if that happens will provide them with a replacement device, or they are forced to buy another drive that the defendants will refuse to compensate them because their original drive Their did not fail, although it could [sic] You no longer trust it to do what it was bought to do in the first place.
As if making storage products unreliable in storage wouldn’t be bad enough, the complaint also notes that Western Digital “may be selling these defective products.” [SSDs] at deep discounts to take them out of stock.”
Interestingly, Krum’s complaint claims that the latest problems with the drives come from a “bug” in the “R332G190” firmware update released in July. As noted by The Register, the update doesn’t appear to be available online but can be locked behind a gate that requires a serial number (we don’t have any Extreme or My Passport SSDs to check. Lee brought his SanDisk drives back when they stopped working).
Fed up customers
This latest lawsuit is still in its early stages, so its class action status is still pending. There is, too Other law firms Investigate customer complaints against Western Digital.
with the client Dissatisfaction Too high, it seems users will seek litigation.
As Ars reported last week, Western Digital’s silence over lost data claims is eroding customer confidence that lingered after SSDs began losing data earlier this year. And that after trust has already been destroyed with many other controversies, such as:
SMR and drive-size scandals have resulted in class-action lawsuits, with the former reportedly ending at $2.7 million. Colony and the latter with Western Digital to compensate affected parties with free $30 backup and recovery software.
Attorneys for Chrome did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment. “We do not comment on pending litigation,” a Western Digital spokesperson said.
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