Anyone else have a similar experience with one of these drives?
I know these comments are going to be full of people touting the virtues of having backup drives, NAS, or other high level data protection, but am I the crazy one? Knock on wood, I know nothing lasts forever, but I have decade+ old usb drives still going strong. How do they burn through so many externals?
I think selection bias is part of it, we tend to hear from the folks who run into issues more than the folks who don’t. I also think a drive that sits on a desktop or in a drawer most of the time in an air-conditioned house will last much longer than one that’s often thrown into a bag and transported in vehicles, airports, etc.
Right, we need more positive articles like “We just didn’t lose 3TB of data on a Sandisk SSD!.. Yep, the data is still there!”
They may have been doing video editing on it. That can be a good amount of read/writes that will wear down a drive.
Vjeran is a supervising producer of a tech site. He should know to back shit up. I’m sure a site as big as The Verge has decent cloud backup.
Chances are your decade old USB sticks didn’t go through as much read/write operations as those 3tb ssds
Maybe not. I don’t mean sticks though, I mean full size mechanical external drives. Not even solid state. On my 3TB, I’ve probably done about 10TB of writes (video backup, transfers, etc)
It’s extremely hard to make, but I was hoping there’s a review website with 100% real user review so this kind of issue can be discovered more easily
reviewmeta tries to do this with Amazon reviews
So they just had this one drive fail and they decided to make a big news article about it? Hardware fails sometimes. Just RMA the thing and shut the fuck up about it. Go build a gaming PC.
Go build a gaming PC.
Don’t forget the table and to use a Swiss Army knife that hopefully has a screwdriver in it.
Ragebait articles generate a lot of clicks ig.
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Did you read the article? Two drives, not one. In 3 months. By the same company. Who is aware of a problem, is trying to hide it, and pushed a firmware update that did not work. Also this second drive was a “safer” replacement the company sent the guy after the first one failed. I say an article about the whole situation is fully warranted
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I use mine for desaster recovery.
Using tineshift to take hourly snapshots of my laptop computer.
I don’t think my laptop and the drive fail at the same time so I think my use case is safe even with these risky drives.
I purchased a 2TB one of these SanDisk “extreme portable” drives in 2018, and 2 more 2TB drives in 2019. Purchased each one roughly 6 months apart. Knock on wood…so far no problems at all with any of the 3. But, drives do often fail (I’ve had several fail over the years). One general rule of thumb I have when shopping for drives is I never buy the model with the highest storage capacity for the product line. It’s just a dumb superstition I have, but it seems like the higher capacity ones (like 3TB and above) are the ones that have failed on me in the past.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This isn’t a drive he purchased many months or years ago — it’s the supposedly safe replacement that Western Digital recently sent after his original wiped his data all by itself.
SanDisk issued a firmware fix for a variety of drives in late May, shortly after our story.
But data recovery services can be expensive, and Western Digital never offered Vjeran any the first time it left him out to dry.
Honestly, it feels like WD has been trying to sweep this under the rug while it tries to offload its remaining inventory at a deep discount — they’re still 66 percent off at Amazon, for example.
Unfortunately, the broken state of the internet means Western Digital doesn’t have to work very hard to keep selling these drives.
I’d also like to say shame on CNET, Cult of Mac and G/O Media’s The Inventory for writing deal posts about this drive that don’t warn their readers at all.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Good bot.
Bruh what?
Ugh, I literally just fucking bought this drive
I almost bought one because they were on huge sale at Amazon.
Yeah, I wouldn’t suggest buying the huge sales at amazon for ssd’s.
They probably pulled the bad drives back from merchant stock to avoid getting returns. Those frequently wind up on Amazon as huge sales.
Not always. Their prime day and Black Friday deals are usually pretty solid. I’ve gotten drives the last 2 prime days, and a black Friday 4 years ago, and they’ve lasted the couple years I’ve had them, and last years 2tb is fine in my PS5 so far.
I’d be wary of any sk hynix ones though. I can almost guarantee those are always ripped out of old builds, because that’s where all of mine have come from.
You’re probably fine, all drives have failures and I haven’t seen anything to indicate this is a widespread issue with the drive.
The manufacturer has acknowledged it’s an issue and has issued at least one patched firmware. This isn’t a “luck of the draw” or isolated issue.
So my serial number says I don’t need the patch. So hopefully I’m fine.
I wonder if it’d be worth returning if you’re still in the window. I don’t know how common the issues are though. Maybe check out the Ars Technica article someone linked?
Well I bought it for mass media storage for an upcoming trip. So I’ll just see how it goes and consider options afterward
But then wouldn’t you lose the data from your trip in the experiment though?
Probably movie files he has saved on a computer somewhere so it’s safe
shuck it and put it into a new enclosure
redundancy is key
redundancy is key
redundancy is key
LOL
Even more redundancy
If the data doesn’t matter: Put it on one drive.
If losing the data would cost you minor downtime: Put it on two drives (or storage arrays of some sort) in two locations.
If losing the data would cause major downtime: Put it on three drives (or storage arrays of some sort) in two or three locations.
If losing the data would cause life-disrupting issues for multiple people: Put it on as many drives as possible/feasible (or storage arrays of some sort) in enough locations that you can sleep well at night.
Edit: weird thing to get a bunch of downvotes, but you do what you want with your data
Yep, this is the way.
This is pretty good advice. I don’t get why the downvotes.
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Someone didn’t read the story. This is about a known firmware fault that the company is doing its best not to keep quiet. Don’t help them in that work
They should’ve made a better headline
Fuck nuance!
They included a large number of words after the headline that expound on the topic.
Yeah but the headline should let me know what the story is and make me interested. Not make me think the author is complaining that their SSD died.
I don’t care about that. I don’t want to read an article about that.
People downvoting you are the same people who complain about clickbait. A good headline should give you a good idea about content of an article. I don’t have time to read 50 articles a day.
This concept is revolutionary! What should we call this new form of information delivery?
Unimportant files get stored in one spot. Important files get at minimum one backup and a separate off-site backup.
Still, if SSDs fail repeatedly, something’s not right. That’s the point of the article
So because backups exist, everyone should be okay with buying bad hardware?
I know you’re not actually saying that, but countering “this is a known firmware fault” with a reminder that backups should be done sure makes it look like you’re saying that. There’s still value in making sure consumers’ money goes to products that last.
i think it’s the “we just lost 3TB of data” part… either the headline is hyperbole, in which case screw the clickbaint… or they lost 3TB of data which is always a good time to remind people that cheap NAND flash is cheap NAND flash
There is absolutely nothing to say that the author didn’t have it backed up. He still lost 3TB of files from a new drive which was a replacement sent by the company, with a known fault supposedly fixed.
“Herp derp he should have backed up” is not the takeaway here”
It’s also entirely possible that he was literally in the process of backing it up. He could have loaded the data onto it, then gone to plug it to his computer to back it up when it suddenly failed. The article doesn’t go into enough detail to draw a conclusion on what he did or didn’t do, but the point is clearly that a drive this new and with few write cycles should not be completely failing.
Single point of failure… surprised pikachu?
The use case for these drives is always a single point of failure. It’s camera footage out in the field. You have to get it home before you have proper storage.
Do you have a dashcam for your vehicle? Do you have backups before you get the footage home?
“I have a defective drive, therefore all drives are defective”
Storage can fail at any time, that’s why important data should be backed up.
Dunno what more to expect from the Verge. Have they tried putting thermal paste on it?
Did like none of y’all read the article?
I did read it, and that was the point that jumped out at me as worth commenting on.
The rest of the WD RMA fuckery wasn’t really that unexpected, although definitely disappointing. If the article had focused on that I wouldn’t even have commented.
I have since found out that these drives are used as the storage for some video cameras, which is definitely a use case where backups are not feasible, and maybe that is what happened to the Verge.
But in all other uses, we should strive to have backups for our data, and given most people don’t backup correctly (myself included) it’s always worth having a reminder of the that… And to be clear, I’m not saying you need to have RAID99 zfs, even a second disk with a manual copy could save a ton of heartache and stress.
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Karma farming? If you say so, don’t think it worked. And I’ve given everyone ample opportunity to downvote me as penance.
I am just not happy with the way that article was written, and I expressed that (poorly, it seems). The Verge cheap shot at the end was maybe a bit mean, but hey, not all jokes land, my bad.
Anyway, seems like at the worst this discussion has brought a lot of attention to WDs product issues, and some light awareness of the importance of backups, so hopefully some good came from it.
We truly are on a Reddit clone.
They don’t send their best…
I’d expect cum from them
In the article they point out their first drive failed and sandisk replaced it. Now the replacement is dying in the same way. And the drive just so happens to be on clearance now, as if they’re trying to clear out stock.
Also, it’s an SSD, so it’s not a mechanical failure.
SSDs can fail at random as well. Often with less warning. It’s definitely newsworthy that there are lots of these failures, but the “We lost 3tb of data” angle is bullshit. The correct response to a USB drive dying should be “Bummer, RMA it, and get a copy from the NAS/cloud/resilient storage”
It’s not bullshit. The Verge is a consumer website. It’s absolutely relevant to inform consumers of a drive during twice and a company perhaps trying to cover up a defect in this way. The rest of us don’t care about what the verge does with their data, we care if it happens to us if we buy the product. I don’t care if I have a backup, I don’t want to buy an unreliable product.
Properly informing consumers should also involve reminding them that regardless of how “reliable” a drive is, failures can and will happen. And while these drives may be worse, a backup strategy is really the only way to be sure your data is actually safe.
I am not annoyed about the article existing, it absolutely should exist. And you should keep its message in mind when buying a drive. But you should also keep in mind the value of your data, that all drives will fail one way or another, and at least consider some form of backup.
Yes, we get it.
Don’t blame the victim here; concentrator on the company being shitty and recommend the victim use backups so they don’t get screwed in the future.
I get what you’re saying, but this was about the RMA replacement also failing.
Yeah, that’s bad, but maybe not surprising either. At that point insist on a refund (consumer protection laws are important) and go buy something else.
But definitely don’t put 3tb of critical unbackedup data on it and hope for the best.
In 2 months though?
The fact that it was a known issue, should have clued them in that maybe it should be used for memes, NFTs, and other crap that means absolutely nothing in the real world.
Aside from design defects, most items havr a bathtub curve for reliability. Stuff either fails very early on, or very late.
These drives are obviously defective. But USB harddrives in general should be used for copying data from point A to B, or storing secondary/tertiary copies of data. But definitely not long term storage of valuable data.
Agreed, all my external drives are backups of music, ebooks, and porn.
Are you willing to accept an article from Ars Technica? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/sandisk-extreme-ssds-keep-abruptly-failing-firmware-fix-for-only-some-promised/
Do you think it’s not newsworthy if a manufacturer sells drives with a history of failures, releases a firmware update they claim will fix the issue, sends a replacement drive that also fails, and continues to sell the drives at a deep discount?
The news can be legit and the Verge can suck simultaneously.
Yes, please. The Verge can suck it every day forever and ever. Sometimes they still share real news, that doesn’t stop them from sucking.
It’s definitely newsworthy, and the ars article is at least a bit more balanced. My main issue is the “I trusted my data to a single USB device, and was then furious when it died” clickbait. These journalists should know better than to store critical data in a single place.
If you can’t RMA the drives then that is a bigger problem, but that comes down to the consumer protection laws you have in your country.
These journalists should know better than to store critical data in a single place.
This again. Kindly point out to me where in the article they say they do not have another copy of that data. This is not an article about backup strategies, it is about repeated hardware failure and a known issue that is not being addressed by its manufacturer while selling affected drives at discount price.
My colleague Vjeran just lost 3TB of video we’d shot for The Verge because the drive is no longer readable.
If they have a backup they wouldn’t have lost anything. Data is only lost when you no long have access to the last copy.
The article should have just kept to the repeated hardware failure, and not waffled on about the lost data.
Thanks for the edit, I was not aware of that either.
OP should have posted this one, not that The Verge crap.
3tb of unprotected data? And it’s the 2nd time it’s happened? Raid1 has existed for a few years and seems pretty reliable.
Try decades. Raid 1 has been around since the 70’s raid 5 since ‘86
Do you have a portable video camera that supports raid 1?
Lots of people in this thread bitching and moaning, not realizing what it means working with hundreds of gigs of video data a day
Got my gf a 2TB version. She also lost most of her files after 1 month of usage. She uses MacOS. But it’s probably to some degree of personal failure. So not sure if this is relevant.
Is this an issue with MacOS? Even the comment section in the article keeps mentioning that it happens on MacOS.
It’s a standard USB device. It interacts with MacOS only via the USB bus, following the standard/spec. If it craps its pants and fails catastrophically when it receives specific, valid USB commands, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s only MacOS or TempleOS that sends the commands that trigger that particular failure case. It’s still the drive’s fault, because it’s failing to do its literal one and only job of safely storing your data over USB.
E.G.: If MacOS can trigger the failure now, then there’s no guarantee that any future update to Windows or Linux won’t also trigger the same failure.
“I put 3TB of irreplaceable data on a single drive, and want to blame anyone but myself for my data loss”
Go away with this garbage.
I personally have a NAS with 12TB striped over 3 drives, I sure wouldn’t blame WD if one drive failed and I lost everything.
E: this whole comment section is why tech illiterate people shouldn’t really comment on hardware failures like this. The only fact that is know is that the verge faced 2 drive failures and lost 3TB of data due to a lack of safe data storage practices. If they were tech literate they wouldn’t have lost any data.
The verge did not confirm the mode of failure, and therefore the second failure could’ve been completely unrelated to the firmware issue. Nobody knows anything, other than the verge needs to educate themselves on how to properly store irreplaceable data.
Let’s see you bring your raid NAS on an out of country video shoot.Edit: Misread the comment. My reply isn’t addressing the actual point he made.
God you guys are all dense.
When did I say a NAS was the correct solution here? I’m just pointing out that I’m not absolved from poor data storage practices. But that I’m only doing it becauss I don’t care about the data.
The verge should know better, and including anything about their lost data in this shows they have no journalistic integrity. Reports the news, with proof that WD didn’t fix the issue. Don’t report that you suck at training your employees.
I get your point now. It really does sound like you were suggesting that they should’ve used a NAS instead at first read. Maybe a clearer paragraph structure would’ve helped you get your point across easier.
The claim here seems to be that the product has an unusual failure rate, the manufacturer has acknowledged the original problem and released a fix, and it does not appear to be fixed. I don’t read it as a sob story about some reporter’s lost data.
Given the verges track record on tech reporting, i wouldn’t put faith in their journalistic integrity of a hit piece unless they show a bit more than “look, i lost a drive after they said they fixed the issue. They’re lying!”
Either you have an axe to grind or don’t really follow The Verge. What “track record” are you talking about here?
They have a history of tech misreporting. It’s not new news.
When you get a bunch of tech illiterate people to write tech articles, you get a bunch of garbage reporting. Including this. They haven’t back up their claims. No actual analysis of the failure point of the drives. They don’t show any proof that their 2 drive failures are even related other than they’re the same drive model. And even then, they didn’t include the exact sku
They have a history of tech misreporting. It’s not new news.
This does not add anything to the discussion. They had that infamous PC build video (for which they apologized and which they retracted) but that’s the only thing I can remember in the years I’ve been following them.
Also, providing a detailed technical analysis was not the scope of the article. Maybe you don’t follow them very much, but they usually don’t do this kind of things. They mostly cover internet culture, how technology impacts society, etc., because that’s their scope. This does not mean the editors are tech illiterate. The point of the article was to say that WD drives fail a lot; some publications are reporting that while some others don’t say anything; and the company is ignoring the problem.
I agree that the tone of the article is pretty butt-hurt and whiny, but that’s a problem of style and not of substance
These drives have a very different use case than a rack mount NAS. They’re portable ruggedized devices for field use, like dumping content from your camera so you can keep shooting. Two would be better but it sounds like a known flaw that is causing random, frequent losses.
God you guys are all dense.
When did I say a NAS was the correct solution here? I’m just pointing out that I’m not absolved from poor data storage practices. But that I’m only doing it becauss I don’t care about the data.
The verge should know better, and including anything about their lost data in this shows they have no journalistic integrity. They simply want to pull your heartstrings for a hit piece with no actual proof. Reports the news, with proof that WD didn’t fix the issue. Don’t report that you suck at training your employees.
Ooh ooooh look at me everybody I’m so much smarter than this IDIOT that expected the devices he PAID FOR to work as advertised and the company to be honest and straightforward with firmware issues and updates
I run this better system than NORMIES and even if it fails (because I’m an idiot) I DONT CARE ABOUT THE DATA on them because iT DiDn’T mATteR tO Me iN tHe fIrSt PlAcE.
PS For people wondering about the second paragraph, check this guy’s other comments in this thread.
Hence why RAID5 is so popular!
Correct. My next build will be redundant but given that my truenas pool is only storing movies, shows, music and porn, I don’t much care if I lose the contents due to a drive failure
