Western Digital (WD) is facing a class action lawsuit alleging defective SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs and subsequent loss of user data. Plaintiffs are seeking over $5 million in damages. The initiator of the process is Nathan Krum, who lives in California.
Image source: Western Digital
In May, SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD users started complaining about data loss when using this SSD model. The most common symptom of a problem was a message when trying to connect: “The drive you connected cannot be read by this computer“. The company recognized the problem and promised to release a firmware update.
However, it turns out that WD only got the credit for the SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro 4TB portable SSDs (SDSSDE61-4T00 and SDSSDE81-4T00, respectively). However, many users with other storage capacities (500GB, 1TB, and 2TB) have experienced similar issues. The company didn’t mention the possibility of a refund for defective drives.
The impossibility of return was arguably the reason for filing a class action lawsuit. Krum claims to have purchased a 2TB SanDisk Extreme Pro for $179.99 around May 19 of this year. After a hard drive broke and data was lost, he spent the money to recover data and buy a new external hard drive. Additionally, Krum states that he cannot return a defective SSD and receive a full refund.
The class action lawsuit, released by the California Northern District Court, alleges that the SSD firmware updates intended to fix the data loss issue were unreliable and that replacement drives shipped to customers suffered from a similar issue.
Plaintiffs may include US citizens who purchased SanDisk Extreme Pro external SSDs as of January 2023, including the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Extreme Portable, Extreme Pro Portable and WD MyPassport SSD models, the documents show. Excluded from the lawsuit are employees of WD/SanDisk and their distributors. It is expected that the number of participants in the process will reach tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Consumer trust is something businesses should value above all else. And in this case, the loss of data can lead to serious consequences, especially for professionals, for whom information is the main working tool. It can therefore be assumed that the claim will be further developed.
The WD customer support page goes on to state that the released firmware updates fix the unexpected crashing issue and that the cause of the defect has been fully resolved at the manufacturer level.
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