SanDisk SSD problems - Buyers Beware

Another SSD drive manufacturer, SanDisk is having issues with some of their their current products. Reference Ars Technica article.

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Eek, that’s worrying. I know a lot of photographers use those drives and rely on them for remote or mobile work. Hope they can get it sorted. Thanks for letting us know.

Samsung is the way to go for SSDs, they are fantastic!

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@David_Kingham
See my comment here . The latest Samsung 990 model is showing problems.

One should be fine with either San Disk or Samsung if you stay away from he particular model mentioned. The problems will be addressed but due to shelf life etc. it might be advisable to refrain from those particular models for 6 mos. or so. There is no way to know if the one you buy is of the bad ones unless the mfg publishes the information.

Quoting from the linked item above just for reinforcement.

"I am a retired IT worker. All technology companies suffer from a small amount of failure in their products, so it may be unfair to damn a whole line of product due to one personal occurrence. I have used SanDisk for 2 decades without a failure. That was out of about 30 cards of differing sizes.

Samsung would be my second choice, based on reputation, but at the moment I would hold off on purchasing their 990 SSD due to early failure rates, per Ars Technica. You could go with an older model."

Now I would not purchase the SanDisk shown in the Ars article, but would have no problem buying either brand in the future.

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UPDATE (06 Jul 2023): Hi folks, I too am a retired IT worker, and I wholly concur with Guy’s comments as well as his experience with SanDisk product reliability. I also have relied on SanDisk without a problem for many years.

The reason I comment now is to give an update: as of today (5 July 2024), if not longer, Western Digital has posted a firmware update for the affected SanDisk products. You can find it at [Firmware Updates for SanDisk & WD Portable SSDs | WD Support] (https://support-en.wd.com/app/firmwareupdate).

06 JULY 2023: I’ve just received one of the affected products from B&H. I’ve checked the serial number of my new unit with Western Digital, and it is NOT affected by the firmware problem. It appears that B&H already has received and is selling new units that WD has made after correcting their problem. For me, that makes the current price ($300 vs. $999 USD) a really spectacular deal.

Regards to all – MET

@Michael_Thornton

Appreciate the update, thanks.

Hi Guy, you bet. :+1:

ANOTHER UPDATE: August 8, 2023. Hey folks, in the interests of full disclosure, PetaPixel is reporting that SanDisk SSD PRO owners continue reporting failures of the products. I don’t have an opinion on the fairness or objectivity of the story, because there doesn’t seem to be any reliable hard data available about the actual scope of the problem.

Capitalism, sensationalism, The Echo Chamber – and the legitimate fear of losing precious images before you even get home – all make this a whirlwind churn of information and misinformation. As I’ve said previously, I own a number of SanDisk Professional SSDs, of varying age and capacity, and I’ve never had a problem. On the other hand, I can’t say I’m not nervous about the possibility of losing a terabyte or more of images on my next safari. I hate the possibility of having to replace so many terabytes of high-speed SSD storage; but I also hate the possible loss of irreplaceable images. A conundrum indeed.

Western Digital is fighting a helluva serious reputation problem now. The V2 PRO drives are faster than anything shy of Thunderbolt 3 (when they work) – if your computer has USB 3.2 Gen 2X2 ports. The write speeds have made a world of Big difference for me on safaris, when I have very little time to off-load my photos at night and frequently have to go for days without electrical plugs in camp. And WD is offering extraordinarily good prices on their products. But should you take a chance with them? Are WD SSDs even reliable? Quien sabe? Only you can decide how much risk you wanna take.

Know your computer’s USB port generations and read/write capabilities (not the same as the USB physical port type, which is obvious). If you don’t have Gen 2X2 capability, then you won’t be able to get the full benefit of a SanDisk Pro V2 SSD. In that case, you might be better off avoiding the company’s products. But if you do have Gen 2X2 ports it’s not so clear, because WD SanDisk is about the only company out there making SSDs with the combination of such high capacities and such high read/write speeds, at such low prices. The gamble becomes more tempting.

Caveat emptor…

And now this from ARS Technia. Apparently Western Digital issued a firmware fix for the issue on the SanDisk products. It doesn’t seem to work. WD is being sued since they seem to be continuing to sell the defective products.

In the past I have defended SanDisk not knowing that WD had bought them out in 2016. At that time WD was starting to play word games in their small technical print and marketing. At that time I began losing belief in their products. Now I have lost all faith in WD and any of their product line.

Edit on 18 Aug: There have now been 3 class action lawsuits against WD/Sandisk in 3 days per ArsTechnica.

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I have recently been using Sabrent 8TB and 4TB NVe with their small aluminum cases. No problems and as fast as ever.