Western Digital is facing a class action lawsuit regarding SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD failures and subsequent losses of user data. The class action group is looking for in excess of $5,000,000 plus interest, fees, and costs, the Register reports. California resident Nathan Krum, is named as the plaintiff.
In May stories popped up about SanDisk Extreme Portable SSDs suffering from sudden failures. A multitude of customers were highlighting data loss problems stemming from their use of this particular family of external SSDs on social media and SanDisk forums. The most common sign that something had gone wrong, and that your SSD had been affected by the data loss issue, was when plugging in you received a message stating "The disk you attached was not readable by this computer." By May, WD / SanDisk admitted it was aware of issues with its external SSDs and promised a firmware update was on the way "soon."
WD seemed to limit its scope of admission regarding the failed drives. In previous reports, we noted that the storage giant intended to provide firmware updates for the 4TB SanDisk Extreme and / or Extreme Pro portable SSDs (SDSSDE61-4T00 and SDSSDE81-4T00 respectively). However, we saw plenty of comments from people with one of these drives in another capacity (they are available in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB, too), struggling with the same sudden data loss issues. There was no mention of refunds being made available.
The lack of refunds, or mention of fixes other capacity drives, might be what pushed the plaintiff to instigate legal action. Krum says he bought a SanDisk Extreme Pro 2TB model for $179.99 on or about May 19, 2023 from Amazon.com. After the drive failed and the lost data Krum had saved upon it, he says he spent money on data recovery services, and to purchase a replacement external hard drive. Of course, dealing with such issues also requires a substantial amount of personal time and energy. Making matters worse, Krum says he "cannot return it [the SSD] for a full refund," and he "can no longer trust using the drive and thus it is worthless to him."
It's not a good look, as the SanDisk Extreme Pro 2TB is advertised as being "reliable enough to take on any adventure," and "a rugged, dependable storage solution," targeting photographers, videographers, and other creative professionals and hobbyists. Moreover, despite WD's statements about data safety, the plaintiff asserts that there was a known "latent defect in manufacturing and/or design." As well as the misleading advertising complaint, the plaintiff is alleging breach of contract and violation of consumer protection law.
The class action document published by the United States District Court For The Northern District Of California, San Jose Division, also contains some information about the experiences of SanDisk Extreme (Pro) customers since our May report. It states that the firmware updates designed to fix / prevent data loss issues were "unreliable," and that replacement drives sent to customers were "reported to suffer from the same defect."
According to the filing, class members are "All persons in the United States who purchased a SanDisk Extreme Pro SSD portable solid-state hard drive, including the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Extreme Portable, Extreme Pro Portable, and WD MyPassport SSD models, at retail since at least January 2023." There are a few exclusions, such as WD / SanDisk employees and resellers. It is estimated that there will be "tens if not hundreds of thousands of individuals," included.
WD's help pages continue to maintain that the firmware updates released fix a problem where drives "unexpectedly disconnect from a computer." It states that the firmware issue has now been addressed by manufacturing and currently shipping products aren't affected (see FAQ section of linked page).
