WD has responded to the growing frustration of SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro portable SSD users who have experienced or faced the dreaded possibility of sudden data loss. Ars Technica SanDisk’s parent company reached out for comment, pointing to multiple social media threads complaining of data loss and drives becoming completely unreadable. SanDisk says a firmware fix is coming “soon,” but the response only mentions the 4TB version of these portable flash storage devices, not the 2TB model update. not.
Astute computer users purchase data storage solutions from SanDisk and others to ensure data safety. Portable SSDs such as the SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro series have Promise of “Professional Grade Storage…Rugged…Reliable…Reliable” Works for at least 5 years (warranty). These portable SSDs are therefore should do it Perfect as a working data or backup drive.
Over the past few months, dissatisfaction with the SanDisk Extreme SSD series has grown, as evidenced by the following Reddit thread: thisagain this, or this. A commonly experienced symptom is that after continuing to write to the drive, all data on the device appears to be erased. Some people then find that the drive is not only empty, but completely unwritable. ah.
An Ars employee had the unfortunate experience of not one but two (2TB) SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs failing. In his experience, he experienced “massive read and write errors” after the drive reached about half capacity. After disconnecting and reconnecting, the drive appeared unformatted and the data in place could not be recovered. Normally this way he would have a very high probability of two drives failing in a row, but WD has admitted that there is a problem with the firmware and they plan to issue an update to fix the problem. .
“Western Digital is aware of reports indicating that some customers are experiencing issues with their 4TB SanDisk Extreme and/or Extreme Pro portable SSDs (SDSSDE61-4T00 and SDSSDE81-4T00 respectively),” said Storage Tech. The company is writing in response to an inquiry from Ars Technica. “The issue has been resolved and a firmware update will be posted on our website shortly. If you have any questions or are experiencing any issues, please contact our customer support team. .”
WD’s statement did not mention the possibility of refunds, which disappointed some users. It’s also unclear if the lack of mention of a 2TB drive was an oversight, or if there will be a firmware update “soon” as a matter of course.
Some unconfirmed chatter suggests that the SanDisk Extreme SSD issue only affects users with devices “manufactured after November 2022”. Still, as of this writing, we recommend that anyone using these drives use extreme caution. It is probably best to use these storage devices only for useful replicated or temporary data until a fix arrives and sufficient testing has been completed.
I can’t help but notice that Amazon has a huge discount on the SanDisk Extreme/Pro SSD right now. However, the buyer should not do anything until the above confusion is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Even though one of these drives performed exceptionally well in our lab tests (March 2021) and made it into our Best External SSD and Hard Drives feature.
