The SanDisk Extreme line of portable SSDs is billed as fast and durable, but owners are learning these drives are less robust than advertised. After months of reports of drives spontaneously dying or deleting all their data, the company has promised a firmware update fix. However, not all versions of the SanDisk Extreme drives are expected to get it.
Western Digital, which owns the SanDisk brand, launched these drives in 2019 with a starting price of $200 for 500GB. The most expensive variant with 2TB of space was $600, but prices today are much lower. The newer 4TB drive is $250, and the 2TB is $120, both steeply discounted. These devices are essentially ruggedized enclosures with an NVMe SSD inside. Our friends at PCMag reviewed the drives very positively, too. Owners happily used these drives until earlier this year when they began to fail en masse.
The lineup of SanDisk Extreme drives today goes up to 4TB, and these drives, along with the 2TB models, are affected by the glitch. There are numerous threads around the internet reporting the same issues. After filling the drives up most of the way, the OS loses the file system. It’s possible to recover it in some instances to recover files, but there’s no guarantee.
Western Digital initially ignored the complaints, but now it has provided a statement to Ars Technica. It’s not a particularly encouraging one, though.
Western Digital is aware of reports indicating some customers have experienced an issue with 4TB SanDisk Extreme and/or Extreme Pro portable SSDs (SDSSDE61-4T00 and SDSSDE81-4T00 respectively). We have resolved the issue and will publish a firmware update to our website soon. Customers with questions or who are experiencing issues should contact our Customer Support team for assistance.
The reply doesn’t mention the smaller 2TB drives, which are also failing at a startling rate. Ars attempted to get more information, but Western Digitial did not elaborate on potential refunds or the 2TB drives. It also neglected to state clearly when this supposed new firmware will appear. Some unverified online banter claims the issue only affects drives manufactured after November 2022, but WD has not confirmed that.
SanDisk offers a limited 5-year warranty, which should cover replacements for all the affected drives. That won’t do anything for people who lost data, though. If you’re using a 2 or 4TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, you should avoid sustained writes to the drive until the new firmware is available. In the meantime, make a backup.
©2001–2023 Ziff Davis, LLC., a Ziff Davis company(Opens in a new window). All Rights Reserved.
ExtremeTech is a registered trademark of Ziff Davis and may not be used by third parties without express written permission.
