On Thursday, two extra lawsuits have been filed against Western Digital over its SanDisk Extreme sequence and My Passport transportable SSDs. That brings the variety of class-action complaints filed against Western Digital to 3 in two days.
In May, Ars Technica reported about buyer complaints that claimed SanDisk Extreme SSDs have been abruptly wiping knowledge and changing into unmountable. Ars senior editor Lee Hutchinson additionally skilled this drawback with two Extreme SSDs. Western Digital, which owns SanDisk, launched a firmware replace in late May, saying that at the moment transport merchandise weren’t impacted. But the corporate did not point out buyer complaints of misplaced knowledge, solely that drives may “unexpectedly disconnect from a pc.”
Further, final week The Verge claimed a alternative drive it acquired after the firmware replace nonetheless wiped its knowledge and have become unreadable, and there are some complaints on Reddit pointing to current issues with Extreme drives.
All three circumstances (one, two, and three) filed against Western Digital this week search class-action certification (Ars was advised it may well take years for a decide to formally state certification and that circumstances might proceed with class-wide resolutions probably occurring earlier than official certification). Ian Sloss, one of many attorneys representing Matthew Perrin and Brian Bayerl in a grievance filed yesterday, advised Ars he would not consider class-action certification can be a significant barrier in a case “the place there’s a widespread defect within the firmware that’s constant in all units.” He added that defect circumstances are “ripe for sophistication remedy.”
Familiar tales
Both complaints filed yesterday reference Lee’s ordeal and Ars’ reporting on the matter, and so they share new accounts that sound much like complaints we have seen reported on-line.
Perrin and Bayerl’s grievance says Perrin purchased “not less than” eight SanDisk Extreme SSDs off Amazon, together with 2TB and 4TB Extreme and 4TB Extreme Pro fashions, and that Perrin “misplaced all knowledge saved on a number of SanDisk SSDs.”
Similarly, Bayerl reportedly purchased “not less than two” Extreme SSDs, together with a 4TB Extreme, off Amazon. The grievance claims the drives nonetheless had busted firmware:
Plaintiff Bayerl has skilled the failure of two drives inside minutes of one another and is now reluctant to make use of SanDisk Extreme merchandise. Due to the character of his work and the information on the units, Plaintiff Bayerl spent almost $8,000 on solely partially profitable efforts to retrieve the information from the failed drives via numerous knowledge restoration third events. These efforts additionally decided that the difficulty was attributable to defective inner firmware on the drives.
Perrin and Bayerl’s grievance mentions the 2TB Extreme, which Western Digital hasn’t formally confirmed as an affected system. A separate grievance filed on Wednesday mentions the 500GB and 1TB Extreme-series and My Passport fashions, which Western Digital hasn’t stated are affected.
Here are the drives Western Digital has stated 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 grievance says that “the now-known points with the faulty SanDisk SSDs and important threat of everlasting knowledge loss, has rendered the SanDisk SSDs nugatory to people searching for dependable knowledge storage.”
“Worthless” can be used within the grievance filed Wednesday by Nathan Krum. The grievance filed Thursday on behalf of Saif Jafri additionally dubbed drives Western Digital named in its firmware replace web page, in addition to the SanDisk Pro-G40 (PetaPixel just lately claimed this drive broke after lower than a month, however Ars has been unable to find out if the drive has a widespread drawback), as “nugatory.”
Jafri’s grievance says he purchased an Extreme Pro (capability not specified) as a result of he was on an prolonged van journey and wanted storage for drone footage, pictures, and journey mementos. The drive reportedly “failed only some weeks after” buy.
“He had written knowledge to the Drive not more than a handful of instances, but he nonetheless misplaced treasured private knowledge,” the grievance says.
The complaints additionally be aware that Western Digital’s 30-day return and five-year guarantee insurance policies do not treatment misplaced knowledge. The circumstances search restitution, together with damages, and for Western Digital to cease promoting the affected drives till they’re fastened or the issues are absolutely disclosed on all labels, packaging, and promoting.
Sloss advised Ars that challenges of the case would possibly embody establishing how ceaselessly drives failed after Western Digital shared its May firmware replace.
“We consider the case is robust, that Western Digital’s response to the difficulty has been delayed, insufficient, and incomplete, and we consider folks are persevering with to buy faulty SSDs based mostly on deceptive info Western Digital has offered,” Sloss stated.
Sloss stated that companies ceaselessly conform to prosecute comparable circumstances collectively, with one agency main. He believes there might be much more regulation companies investigating claims that will file complaints against Western Digital.
Western Digital advised Ars yesterday that it “doesn’t touch upon pending litigation.”