WD Hit With Lawsuit Over SanDisk Portable SSD Failures

Western Digital is currently in some hot water over several reports of its SanDisk portable SSDs failing leading to a class action lawsuit against the company.

Western Digital SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD Issues

Western Digital’s SanDisk Extreme Pro external SSD has been under fire lately due to an undisclosed flaw leading to failures and data loss. The Verge and arstechnica were some of the first media outlets to bring light to this issue after they lost data on their drives including one that was sent as a replacement to a previously failed drive. Supposedly WD sent out a firmware update for the 4TB model drives and not the 2TB model which is also experiencing problems but this firmware update has not patched the issues and only fixed an unexpected disconnection issue.

This bug is also alleged to be part of firmware version R332G190 and causes the drive to enter read-only mode where the user is unable to write any new data to the drive or delete existing data, it also can show incorrect capacities. Both articles expressed concern at a poor response from Western Digital which leads towards a Lawsuit aimed at the company.

WD Lawsuit

As reported by TheRegister.com, a lawsuit has been filed against Western Digital by a California resident, Nathan Krum, who purchased the 2TB Extreme Pro SSD for $180 in May which has become victim to this problem leading to a failure. The complaint claims that Western Digital is not doing enough about this issue despite being fully aware of it plus that they are falsely advertising their products.

The lawsuit alleges that “These SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD portable solid-state hard drives are marketed without either affirmatively disclosing these material limitations or having engaged in a corrective promotional campaign to correct their previous misstatements,”.

The lawsuit has demanded $5 Million in damages for affected customers which could be in the hundreds or thousands.

If you own this drive, get yourself a backup, and if you’re thinking about buying this drive you probably shouldn’t.