SanDisk Extreme SSDs are still wiping data after firmware “fix,” users say
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RickRoyLeonPrisZhoraRacha
Ars Scholae Palatinae
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?
I need to clone my SSD weekly now... to a spinner!
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Thank you for this. I got one on Prime day and realized I'm still within the return window. Guess I'll be Sans SanDisk
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I have the 1T00 version, no issues yet. I do not use it to store critical data though, so I am less concerned. It is typically used for data xfer between devices where the original is still available should it fail.
Still. I heavily trusted WD drives for years. I had much better experience with them than seagate. I still have oodles of storage on WD reds, and almost got bit by SMRgate on some of those. Sad to see them fall so badly.
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Purchased two of these in the last year. First one died within 3 months, thought it was just bad luck. Second one died shortly after. Buyer beware.
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I also do this also (have been using Silicon Power NVME drives for three years now without any issues). Is there a good reason people are using pre-built external drives, rather than putting an internal drive in an enclosure? Size and weight are the same, and it's much cheaper ...
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Thanks for that link.For those needing to check: https://support-en.wd.com/app/firmwareupdate
Reminds me a lot of Samsung's terrible handling of the 990 Pro 2TB ultra-heavy, ultra-fast NAND wear. IIRC, that wear was never reversed, so people were just screwed.
...should I believe this? I've already made a back up, but Sandisk has been so opaque throughout this entire process.
It's a "firmware bug", but it was "fixed in manufacturing": so you mean you just ship new drives with the updated firmware or there is a hardware bug, the firmware only mitigates or slows down the damage, and only freshly-manufactured drives have the complete fix?
But like you I'm not trusting it.
I tested the serial numbers of both my 2TB Extreme Pros... And both are "not impacted". Hurray!
...
But the site doesn't seem to do any validation on the serial numbers against typos. So if you made a typo in the S/N you get a false negative.
The S/N for both drives I have contains an "O". I don't know if that's a letter O, or a digit 0. So I tried both. And it didn't flag either as an invalid S/N although at least one version of each S/N should have been invalid!
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What are the read/write speeds that you can get on those Samsung drives?
The drives I can find online have speeds up to 1050MB/s read, 1000MB/s write. Perhaps there are other models that I haven't been able to find in webshops I usually go to.
The SanDisk drives mentioned in the article are twice as fast, and cost a fair bit more than the Samsung T series drives I see.
So I bought SanDisk for speed, not for the money.
Both my SanDisk drives are working until now. I bought them both well before problems started being reported, so I hope I'm fine.
But for future purchase I'm eyeing the OWC Envoy Pro FX. Supposedly rugged, and speeds up to 2800MB/s.
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I'll be curious what the S/N checker site from SanDisk / WD says about it.
(Link: https://support-en.wd.com/app/firmwareupdate)
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Yes the Samsung T-series are 1050MB/s seq. read, 1000MB/s seq. write. I think the main reason people like them is for their enclosure durability rather than for their speed. Otherwise it makes more sense to pick up something like a Samsung 990 Pro and use a cheap enclosure. They'll do 7,450MB/s/6900MB/s sequential.
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it was either they take forever to build their own flash infrastructure (i.e. the Seagate dance ), or they purchase a decent flash company like sandisk
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It won't do those speeds with a cheap enclosure. You'll need Thunderbolt/USB4 to get anywhere close to that, and those enclosures can be more expensive than the whole drive depending on capacity.
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This. Fortunately (so far?) I went with Samsung T7 SSDs for my last portable SSD batch for our creative dept.
I'm ED at a production broadcast company, and we use these portable SSDs when we're recording in the field and for one of our studio spot cams. The idea of having a team out recording for several hours, using multiple cameras, just to see a failure before they're able to move the data to main storage is ... wow.
Like the above said, these failures can happen in the field, before you have the chance to play 3-2-1 game.
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Arrg, too bad I didn't recognize Sandisk as a WD brand when I bought two Extreme SSDs earlier this year, having recently been bit by a WD NVME total failure.
At least when SD cards fail they are usually readable- SSDs I take it aren't the same but it does make me wonder if this total inaccessibility comes from controller issues rather than the memory itself? (guess it would have to be if they ever fix it via firmware).
At least when SD cards fail they are usually readable- SSDs I take it aren't the same but it does make me wonder if this total inaccessibility comes from controller issues rather than the memory itself? (guess it would have to be if they ever fix it via firmware).
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Yes, that definitely true. I was just trying to point out that the Samsung T series is beloved for its enclosure durability, not its speed. If speed is what you're after, you can do significantly better but (as you've mentioned) you pay for it.
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I generally prefer the same brand until they mess up, and I kinda hoped Sandisk's quality is still somewhat separated from WD after its aquisition, but I guess their time is now finally over. Thankfully there are enough decent brands to go around for SSDs.
Sandisk has been my preferred brand since Samsung messed up their 840 response. My half dozen M.2 and SATA drives from Sandisk are all working very well over years and I recently added two. I also own their V1 portable SSD (SDSSDE80-500G), used as alternative boot drive for my laptop when it's docked. I can reliably reproduce hang after a few hours if I connect it to a USB-C port. It's clearly getting too hot even when there was little I/O going on. Hence I have been using USB-A connection only. At least I didn't lose data I guess.
However, their response on this is unacceptable. More or less inline with how WD responded for the MyCloud incidents. They are the same company now after all. That's probably a calculated act on their side so that most of consumers would not know.
Sandisk has been my preferred brand since Samsung messed up their 840 response. My half dozen M.2 and SATA drives from Sandisk are all working very well over years and I recently added two. I also own their V1 portable SSD (SDSSDE80-500G), used as alternative boot drive for my laptop when it's docked. I can reliably reproduce hang after a few hours if I connect it to a USB-C port. It's clearly getting too hot even when there was little I/O going on. Hence I have been using USB-A connection only. At least I didn't lose data I guess.
However, their response on this is unacceptable. More or less inline with how WD responded for the MyCloud incidents. They are the same company now after all. That's probably a calculated act on their side so that most of consumers would not know.
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I stopped trusting Western digital products a long time ago. I guess it's time to stop buying the products of all the companies they've bought as well.
It sounds like they've had the Western digital culture and values transplanted after the original ones were, um, reformatted.
Edit: had asked the same question everyone else is and finally read through and saw that. It sounds like Samsung other than the recently problematic models is the best bet at the moment
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SK Hynix, Kioxia (formerly Toshiba), and Micron/Crucial to name a few.
The thing is, as others have said, EVERY company is going to have problems. How they deal with those problems when they arise is what makes or breaks their trustworthiness.
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SK Hynix still seems to be excellent. Their software is a little crude, but you don't really need it for anything anyway. It's almost purely informational, it doesn't really do very much.
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The reason is that I know an external drive works, and if it doesn’t there is one manufacturer whose fault it is. Buy them separately and two companies each claim it’s not their fault, but the other company’s. I’m not sure about the “much cheaper”, it seems you pay mostly for the SSD.
And twice as much work going through descriptions, specs, reviews, the risk of buying two items that are not compatible…
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Yep. And now that Ars’ emails route all links through a tracking company “link.meincmagazine.com” my system blocks their stuff. WTF Ars.
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Super Important note for those using SanDisk's website to look up your drive S/N. It is only validating data for positive results, make sure you type your S/N accurately.
Any input of numbers and letters that isn't on their list of known impacted drives will return "Your product has not been impacted". Transcribe one character wrong off that tiny print on the back of the drive and what might actually be a faulty drive will look safe instead of telling you that the S/N you input doesn't exist. You can test this by throwing in any random string of random of 12 numbers and letters, you will get "Your product has not been impacted". I just tried it with "ARSTECHNICA1" and thankfully that drive is not impacted (whew).
Allegedly none of my drives are impacted, but I don't trust these one bit now and just ordered two of the ruggedized Samsung T7 Shields for pickup at my local Best Buy. I ultimately need two more to replace all of these drives currently containing decades worth of mine and my partner's most important documents, media, and other digital keepsakes, but I decided I wanted to split our data sets between two brands now and I wanted to do a little more research on what to pickup for my second pair
Does anyone else who owns/owned these drives ever experience a weird idle lag? One thing that has always made me slightly distrusting of these drives was that whenever they were idle for more than a few minutes, there would be a noticeable lag on them the next time you tried to read or write. It would lockup File Explorer/command line for 5-10 seconds every time I tried to start a new read or write operation after idle, which I found really odd and slightly concerning for solid state drives.
Any input of numbers and letters that isn't on their list of known impacted drives will return "Your product has not been impacted". Transcribe one character wrong off that tiny print on the back of the drive and what might actually be a faulty drive will look safe instead of telling you that the S/N you input doesn't exist. You can test this by throwing in any random string of random of 12 numbers and letters, you will get "Your product has not been impacted". I just tried it with "ARSTECHNICA1" and thankfully that drive is not impacted (whew).
Allegedly none of my drives are impacted, but I don't trust these one bit now and just ordered two of the ruggedized Samsung T7 Shields for pickup at my local Best Buy. I ultimately need two more to replace all of these drives currently containing decades worth of mine and my partner's most important documents, media, and other digital keepsakes, but I decided I wanted to split our data sets between two brands now and I wanted to do a little more research on what to pickup for my second pair
Does anyone else who owns/owned these drives ever experience a weird idle lag? One thing that has always made me slightly distrusting of these drives was that whenever they were idle for more than a few minutes, there would be a noticeable lag on them the next time you tried to read or write. It would lockup File Explorer/command line for 5-10 seconds every time I tried to start a new read or write operation after idle, which I found really odd and slightly concerning for solid state drives.
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I had two Sandisk Extreme Portable 1TB's from Costco do exactly what this article states. And WD/Sandisk took their sweet time giving me a replacement - six weeks, to be exact. And the non-pro 1TB isn't even on the list. I think the problem is bigger than the list you have here, Scharon.
Edit: I've checked my current three Sandisk Extreme drives' serial numbers. None are supposedly impacted, and neither is my Western Digital My Passport SSD model that's supposedly listed on their firmware website. So, if another one of those four stops being recognized... I'm guessing WD/Sandisk might not have the problem well scoped on their end.
Edit: I've checked my current three Sandisk Extreme drives' serial numbers. None are supposedly impacted, and neither is my Western Digital My Passport SSD model that's supposedly listed on their firmware website. So, if another one of those four stops being recognized... I'm guessing WD/Sandisk might not have the problem well scoped on their end.
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I started distrusting SK Hynix's SSDs when it started to sell TCG Pyrite drives as seen in https://ssd.skhynix.com/platinum_p41/ and https://www.solidigm.com/products/client/d6/p44.html . (Solidigm is Intel's former NAND SSD division which SK Hynix purchased.) For an explanation of TCG Pyrite to see why it is almost useless or worse than useless, see https://winmagic.com/en/opalite-pyrite-sed-specifications-simplified/ . Several SSD reviewers were fooled into thinking that TCG Pyrite is another hardware self-encrypting drive specification when it is not.
However, Solidigm's software was Intel's NAND SSD software that has been reskinned and rebranded.
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Their Platinum P41 drive is from their old lineup, and it doesn't use Intel's rebranded Solidigm software, it uses an older line of software that's pretty ugly. However, it doesn't actually DO very much, just shows you information, so it being ugly and crude is not that big a deal.
Bad crypto sucks, but I'm not using encryption on my P41 anyway, so it being done poorly isn't a problem for me. I'm much more worried about reliability, longevity, and warranty protection, all of which seem unaffected in the P41 line. But if encryption is important to your use case, then yeah, I could totally see bailing on them until they got it right.
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I have a number of these drives from a couple of years back and am wondering if they are affected by this.
I just changed out my Macintosh and used one of these as data backup to set up the new Mac and it worked flawlessly pulling files from Time Machine.
I just changed out my Macintosh and used one of these as data backup to set up the new Mac and it worked flawlessly pulling files from Time Machine.
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May have something to do with power management either for USB or the device itself. (also possibly related to indexing shenanigans- for instance seems like explorer will let user view folder structures to a certain depth even if the drive isn't yet accessible).
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I've got one of these permanently attached to a laptop as a (relatively) speedy bit of additional storage. Haven't had any issues with it so far, but after reading this article sounds like a good idea to move everything remotely important off the drive.
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All that is pretty wild. I'll admit as a person who works on both side (IT Support and Customer-Facing Support) I understand both perspectives. Sometimes a company wants to say something but can't because leadership won't comment or have a plan of action until they know what's wrong.
I've been using WD procuts for around 20 years now. I haven't had many problems, and when I have, they always replaced under warranty drives free or charge. Do their devices fail prematurely? Sure, about as often as any brand I've tested. Does losing data suck? Yeah it does that's why you need backups.
At any rate, I hope they sort it all out soon and Sandisk products can get their quality issues sorted out.
I remember when OZ drives were extremely highly rated by magazines because of speed, and then started failing right and left after a certain numberof read/writes. It's unfortunate that it's often difficult to catch these issues BEFORE there's thousands of them out in the wild, but that's why internal QA and consumer labs that test are so important.
I've been using WD procuts for around 20 years now. I haven't had many problems, and when I have, they always replaced under warranty drives free or charge. Do their devices fail prematurely? Sure, about as often as any brand I've tested. Does losing data suck? Yeah it does that's why you need backups.
At any rate, I hope they sort it all out soon and Sandisk products can get their quality issues sorted out.
I remember when OZ drives were extremely highly rated by magazines because of speed, and then started failing right and left after a certain numberof read/writes. It's unfortunate that it's often difficult to catch these issues BEFORE there's thousands of them out in the wild, but that's why internal QA and consumer labs that test are so important.
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This is unfortunate. I have two of the listed models for the Time Machine drive for my personal and work drivers.
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I realize this isn't conclusive, but one of the answers in the FAQ does seem to suggest that this was only firmware and not a hardware issue:For those needing to check: https://support-en.wd.com/app/firmwareupdate
Reminds me a lot of Samsung's terrible handling of the 990 Pro 2TB ultra-heavy, ultra-fast NAND wear. IIRC, that wear was never reversed, so people were just screwed.
...should I believe this? I've already made a back up, but Sandisk has been so opaque throughout this entire process.
It's a "firmware bug", but it was "fixed in manufacturing": so you mean you just ship new drives with the updated firmware or there is a hardware bug, the firmware only mitigates or slows down the damage, and only freshly-manufactured drives have the complete fix?
Is this firmware issue still a problem?
We addressed this firmware issue in the manufacturing process, and we can confirm that the issue is not impacting currently shipping products.
Let's hope.
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I purchased a SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 2TB (SDSSDE81-2T00) from Amazon UK on 19/6/23. Three times now it has completely wiped the data and gone back to 'factory settings' (hard drive no longer has the name I gave it etc).
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macosandlinux
Ars Praefectus
Back in the (g)olden days - Hitachi, G-Technology come to mind!
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Many of these failure reports are related to photo/video work. I would expect an initial camera storage medium still exists after copying to the failed drive. I don't format my camera storage cards until the work is copied to my laptop's internal hard drive, plus two portable drives. And when traveling, those three are not together unless with me, providing me protection from theft. This seems a simple and effective precaution to protect valuable work from the failures described.
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