On Thursday, two extra lawsuits have been filed towards Western Digital over its SanDisk Excessive collection and My Passport transportable SSDs. That brings the variety of class-action complaints filed towards Western Digital to 3 in two days.
In Might, Ars Technica reported about buyer complaints that claimed SanDisk Excessive SSDs have been abruptly wiping knowledge and turning into unmountable. Ars senior editor Lee Hutchinson additionally skilled this downside with two Excessive SSDs. Western Digital, which owns SanDisk, launched a firmware replace in late Might, saying that at the moment transport merchandise weren’t impacted. However the firm did not point out buyer complaints of misplaced knowledge, solely that drives may “unexpectedly disconnect from a pc.”
Additional, final week The Verge claimed a alternative drive it obtained after the firmware replace nonetheless wiped its knowledge and have become unreadable, and there are some complaints on Reddit pointing to latest issues with Excessive drives.
All three instances (one, two, and three) filed towards Western Digital this week search class-action certification (Ars was instructed it could take years for a choose to formally state certification and that instances might proceed with class-wide resolutions presumably occurring earlier than official certification). Ian Sloss, one of many legal professionals representing Matthew Perrin and Brian Bayerl in a grievance filed yesterday, instructed Ars he would not consider class-action certification will likely be a serious barrier in a case “the place there’s a frequent defect within the firmware that’s constant in all units.” He added that defect instances are “ripe for sophistication therapy.”
Acquainted tales
Each complaints filed yesterday reference Lee’s ordeal and Ars’ reporting on the matter, and so they share new accounts that sound much like complaints we have seen reported on-line.
Perrin and Bayerl’s grievance says Perrin purchased “not less than” eight SanDisk Excessive SSDs off Amazon, together with 2TB and 4TB Excessive and 4TB Excessive Professional fashions, and that Perrin “misplaced all knowledge saved on a number of SanDisk SSDs.”
Equally, Bayerl reportedly purchased “not less than two” Excessive SSDs, together with a 4TB Excessive, off Amazon. The grievance claims the drives nonetheless had busted firmware:
Plaintiff Bayerl has skilled the failure of two drives inside minutes of one another and is now reluctant to make use of SanDisk Excessive merchandise. Because of the nature of his work and the info on the units, Plaintiff Bayerl spent practically $8,000 on solely partially profitable efforts to retrieve the info from the failed drives by means of varied knowledge restoration third events. These efforts additionally decided that the problem was attributable to defective inside firmware on the drives.
Perrin and Bayerl’s grievance mentions the 2TB Excessive, which Western Digital hasn’t formally confirmed as an affected system. A separate grievance filed on Wednesday mentions the 500GB and 1TB Excessive-series and My Passport fashions, which Western Digital hasn’t mentioned are affected.
Listed here are the drives Western Digital has mentioned are affected:
- SanDisk Excessive Transportable 4TB (SDSSDE61-4T00)
- SanDisk Excessive Professional Transportable 4TB (SDSSDE81-4T00)
- SanDisk Excessive Professional Transportable 2TB (SDSSDE81-2T00)
- SanDisk Excessive Professional Transportable 1TB (SDSSDE81-1T00)
- Western Digital My Passport 4TB (WDBAGF0040BGY).
Perrin and Bayerl’s grievance says that “the now-known points with the faulty SanDisk SSDs and vital danger of everlasting knowledge loss, has rendered the SanDisk SSDs nugatory to people searching for dependable knowledge storage.”
“Nugatory” can be used within the grievance filed Wednesday by Nathan Krum. The grievance filed Thursday on behalf of Saif Jafri additionally dubbed drives Western Digital named in its firmware replace web page, in addition to the SanDisk Professional-G40 (PetaPixel just lately claimed this drive broke after lower than a month, however Ars has been unable to find out if the drive has a widespread downside), as “nugatory.”
Jafri’s grievance says he purchased an Excessive Professional (capability not specified) as a result of he was on an prolonged van journey and wanted storage for drone footage, pictures, and journey mementos. The drive reportedly “failed only some weeks after” buy.
“He had written knowledge to the Drive not more than a handful of instances, but he nonetheless misplaced valuable private knowledge,” the grievance says.
The complaints additionally word that Western Digital’s 30-day return and five-year guarantee insurance policies do not treatment misplaced knowledge. The instances search restitution, together with damages, and for Western Digital to cease promoting the affected drives till they’re mounted or the issues are totally disclosed on all labels, packaging, and promoting.
Sloss instructed Ars that challenges of the case would possibly embody establishing how regularly drives failed after Western Digital shared its Might firmware replace.
“We consider the case is robust, that Western Digital’s response to the problem has been delayed, insufficient, and incomplete, and we consider persons are persevering with to buy faulty SSDs primarily based on deceptive data Western Digital has offered,” Sloss mentioned.
Sloss mentioned that corporations regularly comply with prosecute related instances collectively, with one agency main. He believes there may very well be much more regulation corporations investigating claims that will file complaints towards Western Digital.
Western Digital instructed Ars yesterday that it “doesn’t touch upon pending litigation.”
