SanDisk SSD Owners Can't Use Products Due to Data Loss Worries: Class Action

Western Digital continues to market defective SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro portable solid-state drives (SSDs), despite those defects having caused some drives to delete data without warning and leaving them “entirely unreadable,” alleged an Aug. 29 fraud class action in San Jose County Superior Court that Western Digital and SanDisk removed Tuesday (docket 5:23-cv-05603) to U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.

Western Digital has “no planned fix” for the defective products, which have been widely reported in tech circles over the past four months, and the company is “attempting to offload them on unsuspecting consumers at ‘drastic markdown,’ without mention of the defect,” said the complaint, citing The Verge. A screenshot showed a SanDisk 4TB Extreme Pro SSD discounted by 67% on Amazon to $299.

Plaintiff Brian McKinney of West Lafayette, Indiana, bought a 2TB SanDisk Extreme portable SSD on Amazon for $320 in June 2020, said the complaint. Due to “unexpected and complete loss of data” on the product, McKinney isn’t able to use the drive at all and won’t be for the foreseeable future, said the complaint.

Despite Western Digital’s claims that its SanDisk Extreme Pro portable SSDs “will be free from defects in material and worksmanship” and will conform to company specifications, reports “have proliferated” since the beginning of the year of “panicked and disappointed users detailing experiences” with recently purchased models, said the complaint, citing a May Ars Technica article. In each instance, users described defective drives deleting stored data with no warning.

The Ars Technica article traced the defect to occurrences after a “sustained write” when users “completely lose their filesystem,” saying it’s a “total crap shoot” whether lost data can be recovered. In some cases, users were able to recover data using DiskDrill’s filesystem rebuild, it said. One user said he lost an entire 4TB SanDisk SSD worth of video clips. When he tried adding some of the files back, “they started disappearing one by one,” said The Verge.

Speculation the defect is limited to a batch of drives manufactured after November 2022 was countered by reports of drive failure and data loss dating back several years and recounted on SanDisk user forums. One account from 2013 reported data loss with a 480GB drive.

Ars Technica posted a statement from Western Digital from May saying it was aware of reports that some customers had problems with 4TB SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro drives and that it “resolved the issue.” But the statement didn’t address questions about the 2TB versions, nor did it answer questions about refunds, what caused the defect or when a firmware fix would be available, said the complaint.

That leaves “all owners” of SanDisk defective SSDs “left without recourse,” said the complaint. Western Digital has given no estimate of when a firmware patch will be available, other than to say, “Soon,” it said. The patch reportedly addresses only 4TB models, while McKinney and others own 2TB models with the same vulnerability, he said.

Consumers “have little recourse” if their SanDisk SSDs remain defective, said the complaint, quoting from the company’s warranty. The “exclusive remedy” for a defective product is “limited to the repair or replacement” of that product, it said, but Western Digital is “unable to repair any of the affected SSDs,” and the promised repair will affect only 4TB versions. “Even assuming that the firmware update works, owners of the 2TB models will not be made whole with a repair (which is not available) or a replacement (with another potentially defective SSD)," it said.

That provision violates the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which says that if a product or component contains a defect after a “reasonable number of attempts” by the warrantor to fix the malfunction, the warrantor “must permit the consumer to elect either a refund for, or replacement without charge of,” the product or part, it said.

McKinney asserts violations of the California Unfair Competition Law, plus unjust enrichment, breach of express and implied warranty, negligence and strict liability for manufacturing and design defects. He seeks an order enjoining Western Digital from pursuing the practices alleged in the complaint, damages, reasonable attorneys’ fees and pre- and post-judgment interest.

Western Digital, which on Monday announced a split of its flash memory and hard disk drive businesses into separate public companies, didn’t comment on the class action Wednesday.