Western Digital has now tacitly acknowledged that the SanDisk Extreme Pro portable hard drives are seriously cracked after all – by releasing a firmware update that we hope will keep the 4TB model from Wipe all your data on its own. (seriously.)
but like Ars Technica reportsThere’s no mention of any fixing for the 2TB model, and I think it’s time to sound the alarm—because this company has been playing down the issue for months, all while continuing to sell these drives at a deep discount.
More than two months ago, my friend and edge Supervising Producer Vjeran Pavic told me he lost 4TB of SanDisk Extreme Pro videos complete. Completely gone without a trace. (Thankfully, he’s already backed up all of that footage to the cloud.)
SSD fail happens, but something weirder was happening here – when he tried to add some files again, they started disappearing one by one.
And when he called a SanDisk customer support agent, he was told they couldn’t replace his drive because the 4TB model was recalled. They struck a deal to trade it in for a pair of 2TB units instead — but he never actually received it because the company’s RMA system was down amid the data breach.
Unfortunately, as Ars Reports, the 2TB model may also be vulnerable to the problem. Ars Technica Editor Lee Hutchinson has two 2TB Extreme Pros dead on it, with the entire file system wiped, and there are similar complaints online.
I feel guilty for not writing about this matter earlier, but there were reasons why we were put off. First, there was evidence that the 4TB model was still on sale and no Actually it is called. Second, when we contacted WD about the issue in March, the company told us that it was “actively investigating” a “small number of reports,” downplaying the issue.
But Fujairan is right Warning tweet When he noticed that the company had started putting drives at a deep discount:
Today, with WD’s tacit admission, there’s certainly no way you’d buy that drive without independent third-party testing to hide the problem.
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