A new report from a data recovery company now points the finger at design and manufacturing flaws as the underlying issue with the recent flood of SanDisk Extreme Pro failures that eventually spurred a class action lawsuit. It became clear in May that some of Western Digital's SanDisk Extreme Pro 4TB SSDs suffered from sudden data loss; at this point, the company promised a firmware update to owners of the 4TB models. However, the 2TB and 3TB models also suffer from the same issue, and Western Digital did not promise any firmware updates for these drives.
Markus Häfele, Managing Director of Attingo, a data recovery company, told FutureZone that the problem lies in hardware, not firmware, which could explain the lack of corrective firmware updates for those models and SanDisk's continued silence about the source of the issues.
A Hardware Problem
Attingo, which has been in the data recovery business for over 25 years, normally sees these failed SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs at least once a week. The problem appears to be rather complex. According to Häfele, the components used in these SSDs are too big for the circuit board, causing weak connections (i.e., high impendence and high temperatures) and making them prone to breaking. He also says that the soldering material used to attach these components is prone to forming bubbles and breaking easily.
It remains unknown whether the cause is cheap solder, the componentry, or both contribute to the issues observed. However, newer revisions of these SanDisk Extreme Pro SSDs seem to have been modified with extra epoxy resin to secure the oversized components. This suggests that Western Digital might know about the hardware problems. Nevertheless, these newer models are still failing, thus sending data recovery service customers to firms like Attingo.
According to the head of Attingo, the issue seems to be affecting multiple product lineups, including both SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD as well as the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD.
A Strange Attitude?
Western Digital's handling of this situation, especially in communicating with customers and the media, can easily be criticized. Our colleagues from The Verge first reported back on August 8 that Western Digital's SanDisk Extreme 3TB SSDs can suddenly lose data, requiring expensive data recovery services to recoup precious files — if you're lucky. As it turns out, one of The Verge's editors lost a video stored on one of these drives and, after a quick investigation, discovered that he is far from alone with this problem. He noted that people continued losing data on 2TB SSDs after May, which is when Western Digital promised a firmware update for the 4TB drives.
To follow up on its investigation, the Verge quizzed Western Digital about the recurring issue with its Extreme Pro SSDs but did not receive a response as of August 19, 2023. The website asked WD why storage that could potentially lose data was suddenly on sale at several retailers and whether the company planned to offer free data recovery services to its customers. The editors also questioned whether Western Digital proactively warned users about the possible issue.
NAND memory-based drives can lose data due to multiple factors. Sometimes, the flash drive itself might have manufacturing defects that can cause data loss. This is more common with low-quality or counterfeit drives, but this is certainly not the case with the SanDisk Extreme Pro products bought from prominent retailers like Amazon. Worse yet, these external SSDs are aimed at professionals.
While one of the issues is that some of Western Digital's SanDisk Extreme Pro suddenly lose data, another is that the company hasn't communicated well about the problems. We have contacted Western Digital once again for comment and await a response.
