Archived version: https://archive.ph/KYO3X
On Thursday, two more lawsuits were filed against Western Digital over its SanDisk Extreme series and My Passport portable SSDs. That brings the number of class-action complaints filed against Western Digital to three in two days.
In May, Ars Technica reported about customer complaints that claimed SanDisk Extreme SSDs were abruptly wiping data and becoming unmountable. Ars senior editor Lee Hutchinson also experienced this problem with two Extreme SSDs. Western Digital, which owns SanDisk, released a firmware update in late May, saying that currently shipping products weren’t impacted. But the company didn’t mention customer complaints of lost data, only that drives could “unexpectedly disconnect from a computer.”
Further, last week The Verge claimed a replacement drive it received after the firmware update still wiped its data and became unreadable, and there are some complaints on Reddit pointing to recent problems with Extreme drives.
All three cases (one, two, and three) filed against Western Digital this week seek class-action certification (Ars was told it can take years for a judge to officially state certification and that cases may proceed with class-wide resolutions possibly occurring before official certification). Ian Sloss, one of the lawyers representing Matthew Perrin and Brian Bayerl in a complaint filed yesterday, told Ars he doesn’t believe class-action certification will be a major barrier in a case “where there is a common defect in the firmware that is consistent in all devices.” He added that defect cases are “ripe for class treatment.”
Familiar stories
Both complaints filed yesterday reference Lee’s ordeal and Ars’ reporting on the matter, and they share new accounts that sound similar to complaints we’ve seen reported online.
Perrin and Bayerl’s complaint says Perrin bought “at least” eight SanDisk Extreme SSDs off Amazon, including 2TB and 4TB Extreme and 4TB Extreme Pro models, and that Perrin “lost all data stored on several SanDisk SSDs.”
Similarly, Bayerl reportedly bought “at least two” Extreme SSDs, including a 4TB Extreme, off Amazon. The complaint claims the drives still had busted firmware:
Plaintiff Bayerl has experienced the failure of two drives within minutes of each other and is now reluctant to use SanDisk Extreme products. Due to the nature of his work and the data on the devices, Plaintiff Bayerl spent nearly $8,000 on only partially successful efforts to retrieve the data from the failed drives through various data recovery third parties. These efforts also determined that the issue was caused by faulty internal firmware on the drives.
Perrin and Bayerl’s complaint mentions the 2TB Extreme, which Western Digital hasn’t officially confirmed as an affected device. A separate complaint filed on Wednesday mentions the 500GB and 1TB Extreme-series and My Passport models, which Western Digital hasn’t said are affected.
Here are the drives Western Digital has said are affected:
- SanDisk Extreme Portable 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).
Perrin and Bayerl’s complaint says that “the now-known issues with the defective SanDisk SSDs and significant risk of permanent data loss, has rendered the SanDisk SSDs worthless to individuals seeking reliable data storage.”
“Worthless” is also used in the complaint filed Wednesday by Nathan Krum. The complaint filed Thursday on behalf of Saif Jafri also dubbed drives Western Digital named in its firmware update page, as well as the SanDisk Pro-G40 (PetaPixel recently claimed this drive broke after less than a month, but Ars has been unable to determine if the drive has a widespread problem), as “worthless.”
Jafri’s complaint says he bought an Extreme Pro (capacity not specified) because he was on an extended van trip and needed storage for drone footage, photos, and travel mementos. The drive reportedly “failed only a few weeks after” purchase.
“He had written data to the Drive no more than a handful of times, yet he nonetheless lost precious personal data,” the complaint says.
The complaints also note that Western Digital’s 30-day return and five-year warranty policies don’t remedy lost data. The cases seek restitution, including damages, and for Western Digital to stop selling the affected drives until they’re fixed or the problems are fully disclosed on all labels, packaging, and advertising.
Sloss told Ars that challenges of the case might include establishing how frequently drives failed after Western Digital shared its May firmware update.
“We believe the case is strong, that Western Digital’s response to the issue has been delayed, inadequate, and incomplete, and we believe people are continuing to purchase defective SSDs based on misleading information Western Digital has provided,” Sloss said.
Sloss said that firms frequently agree to prosecute similar cases together, with one firm leading. He believes there could be even more law firms investigating claims that may file complaints against Western Digital.
Western Digital told Ars yesterday that it “does not comment on pending litigation.”
These drives are perfect for a torrent box. Use it as the boot and storage disk, and if Johnny law knocks on the door and seizes them, they get a blank disk :D. And if the disk does work, you sue WD anyway :D
“there are no bad products, only bad marketing” /s
groan i can’t wait for my boss to spam me this saying 'this is why our drives keep faulting???"
(No dude, we use SATA and since we’ve rolled out 200 systems with an average of four drives each and only had five fucking HDD faults we are actually beneath the reasonable fault percentage)
SATA SSDs exist and have failure risks from WD or other shit-tier manufacturers, so I don’t understand the shower argument you just made
- A firmware issue affecting an entire family of products
- Manufacturer MTBF rates adhering to standard deviation
These are not the same.
The boss doesn’t know that, either, that’s the point
Great, found my fuckin’ boss.
I have had 4 870 evo 2TB SSDs fail in the last 2 years.
Each time Samsung replaced them. Last time with a 4TB after news of the early failures on the 1-2TB evos.
I hope those failures taught you a lesson not to store all your weird furry porn on those kinds of SSDs.
Used for vm lun hosting in a lab. Ironically the 860s have all been fine. Can’t find 860s though and even when you order them on Amazon you often get 870s.
They are really pretty reliable of the ssd makers.
I almost pulled the trigger on one of these during Amazon’s recent big sale, but there was a trend in the user reviews that troubled me. I went with a Samsung unit instead. No regrets.
I bought 20 of these for a project and over the course of a few months 4-5 of them have failed. Luckily they are just used to shuttle data that is backed up.
Contact the plaintiffs, you’ll get a much larger payout if you help them make their case rather than wait for the ruling.
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Youre not winning against a giant corporation on your own and even if all you get is 20 dollar coupon to applebees out of it, part of the point is costing the company getting sued enough money that they think twice about doing this again. All eating the loss without a fight does is teach them that you are indeed prey that they can harvest.
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No, its bigger than just you. If the company isnt made to pay for shitty practices they’ll just mug the next chump that comes along to fill your seat.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In May, Ars Technica reported about customer complaints that claimed SanDisk Extreme SSDs were abruptly wiping data and becoming unmountable.
Western Digital, which owns SanDisk, released a firmware update in late May, saying that currently shipping products weren’t impacted.
Ian Sloss, one of the lawyers representing Matthew Perrin and Brian Bayerl in a complaint filed yesterday, told Ars he doesn’t believe class-action certification will be a major barrier in a case “where there is a common defect in the firmware that is consistent in all devices.”
Jafri’s complaint says he bought an Extreme Pro (capacity not specified) because he was on an extended van trip and needed storage for drone footage, photos, and travel mementos.
The cases seek restitution, including damages, and for Western Digital to stop selling the affected drives until they’re fixed or the problems are fully disclosed on all labels, packaging, and advertising.
Sloss told Ars that challenges of the case might include establishing how frequently drives failed after Western Digital shared its May firmware update.
The original article contains 771 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
updating hard disc firmware
😆
The update can only be run using a windows machine and it’s very buggy. Can’t really trust the drives even after the firmware update.
I think this may have happened to me, but I thought my dumb ass did something somehow to delete all the data.
I have several of these.
Why am I angry?
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After I lost 1TB of family photos, videos and documents a few years ago I never used and will never use any western digital products again. Simple as that. I’m still a bit grumpy about it, but my own fault to rely on just one hard drive, since that occurrence I mirror everything I wanna keep at least 2 times automatically.
