SanDisk’s Name is Now Mud
- Thread starter jerrylwatson
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I went to their website and was input the serial number. the problem is that the number is essentially illegible - tiny brown figures on black. In the end I couldonly read it by holding under a bright lamp, photographing with my phone and enlarging the image. After some guesswork the number was entered an I'm informed I'm fine.
LOL! I used a magnifying glass to read the SN. It was still tough to read!
The bigger problem is it is not just SanDisk and not just a product problem. SanDisk has a problem with a product and rather than deal with it responsibly, it decided to go silent and discount the defective product to unsuspecting consumers to recoup losses. Several years ago SanDisk was acquired by Western Digital which for years has been my go to for reliable hard drives and SSDs. Western Digital is calling the shots here so I now have to consider if Western Digital is also on my "no buy" list. This is not the first time for shenanigans from WD either. It pulled a failure to properly label drives as SMR or CMR. I don't have problem with it selling SMR drives (which are very slow), just properly label them so I can make an informed choice (to be fair, Toshiba and Seagate did it too).
arstechnica.com
Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR
Hard drives were already bad at random access I/O—but SMR disks are worse.
arstechnica.com
Replytoken
Well-known member
At the moment, WD is my least worst provider of spinning platter drives. I rely on Samsung for my external SSD's. Most of Samsung's internal SSD and NVMe drives are fine, but Puget Systems did flag one of the newer models to avoid: https://www.pugetsystems.com/blog/2023/02/02/update-on-samsung-ssd-reliability/ and https://www.pugetsystems.com/support/guides/critical-samsung-ssd-firmware-update/ .The bigger problem is it is not just SanDisk and not just a product problem. SanDisk has a problem with a product and rather than deal with it responsibly, it decided to go silent and discount the defective product to unsuspecting consumers to recoup losses. Several years ago SanDisk was acquired by Western Digital which for years has been my go to for reliable hard drives and SSDs. Western Digital is calling the shots here so I now have to consider if Western Digital is also on my "no buy" list. This is not the first time for shenanigans from WD either. It pulled a failure to properly label drives as SMR or CMR. I don't have problem with it selling SMR drives (which are very slow), just properly label them so I can make an informed choice (to be fair, Toshiba and Seagate did it too).
Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR
Hard drives were already bad at random access I/O—but SMR disks are worse.
--Ken
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ricardo00
Well-known member
Just was reading that a lawsuit has been filed over the problems with this product:
arstechnica.com
Western Digital, SanDisk Extreme SSDs don’t store data safely, lawsuit says
The suit is seeking class-action certification.
arstechnica.com
I stopped using WD years ago, they had failures. I only use Seagate NAS/Enterprise for spinning drives with never a problem. My ssd drives are Samsung and SK hynix Gold.
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ricardo00
Well-known member
Interesting, I have used the LaCie Rugged external hard drives which Seagate owns and haven't had any problems. But have been thinking of getting a SSD external hard drive and wondered which to get.
All my external drives are in RAID enclosures. I do not use an external drive when I travel. I have 4tb internal to my laptop and extra CF cards to store images until I get home. I have a GNARBOX 2.0 SSD (256GB) Rugged Backup Device but they went belly up.
Curious, I stopped using Seagate drives and stayed with WD. The Seagate drives were the portable ones from Costco. Not familiar with the Seagate enterprise drives but will look into them.
John Navitsky
Well-known member
to be fair, it’s not that you need to avoid the drive, which seems to be the internet take-away, but rather you need to make sure the fw is up to date.
For what it’s worth, SpaceRex no longer recommended Western Digital Drivers for NAS as they automatically show an issue after 3 years. I can’t recall the exact term. He has a YT on it. I’ll just call it two strikes and you are out when it comes to drives.
Actually, there are numerous reports of drives failing after the update. I even read one where the reviewer was sent a new drive from SanDisk after the update and it also failed. Products sometimes have problems. No company is immune. It’s management’s incredibly poor response that gives me serious pause.
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Replytoken
Well-known member
Yes, Puget Systems did put up one blog post and then the other. I initially read the one that stated they are moving away from the 980's and then found the other one about the firmware update today. Their site is not that easy to search.
--Ken
And it went beyond that.The bigger problem is it is not just SanDisk and not just a product problem. SanDisk has a problem with a product and rather than deal with it responsibly, it decided to go silent and discount the defective product to unsuspecting consumers to recoup losses. Several years ago SanDisk was acquired by Western Digital which for years has been my go to for reliable hard drives and SSDs. Western Digital is calling the shots here so I now have to consider if Western Digital is also on my "no buy" list. This is not the first time for shenanigans from WD either. It pulled a failure to properly label drives as SMR or CMR. I don't have problem with it selling SMR drives (which are very slow), just properly label them so I can make an informed choice (to be fair, Toshiba and Seagate did it too).
Buyer beware—that 2TB-6TB “NAS” drive you’ve been eyeing might be SMR
Hard drives were already bad at random access I/O—but SMR disks are worse.
Ok guys. If I was a moderator, I would consider this a Brand Bashing as specified in the rules:
- Personal opinions are presented as a truth
- Arguments are links to other personal opinions.
Respectfully disagree on this. This is a serious discussion about an essential aspect of what we do, and why some choices should be changed.
ricardo00
Well-known member
+1, as someone who was a faithful buyer of Sandisk cards, I feel lucky I had read reviews of the Delkin black CFexpress cards before getting my first one and switched at that time. Now I will steer clear of Sandisk. We depend on these cards/portable SSD for the safety of our pics.
My eyes are deteriorating and I was unable to read the Serial numbers even with the aid of a bright light and magnifying glass. Taking a photo and enlarging it worked well - thanks for the tip...
Both my drives are "not affected" but as a guy whose career was in risk management I am wondering why I have the same maker and model for both my main external drive and the backup. This is a wake up call for me and I will replace one of the drives with another manufacturer
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John Navitsky
Well-known member
my recommendation is to always have at least three copies, at least one of which is off-site
Not A Speck Of Cereal
Well-known member
I brought out my project magnifier helmet (super mag) with powerful glasses and lots of light and STILL had to squint to see the dark-gray-on-dark-gray SN.
But I was in the clear (not in the affected range). I still don't know about trusting them and really don't need to (got plenty of other portable storage). I might donate them.
On the WD topic: I've used WD NAS drives in NAS and RAID arrays for many years and have never had problems outside of the normal range (and always within the warranty period). That "Stop buying WD RED NAS drives" video has been debunked and severely derided, and that happened right after it was released. His logic doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I prefer the PRO to the lesser PLUS drives, but I do use PLUS drives in the seldom-used offsite backup (which only runs when I'm backing up) and they work fine.
Chris
But I was in the clear (not in the affected range). I still don't know about trusting them and really don't need to (got plenty of other portable storage). I might donate them.
On the WD topic: I've used WD NAS drives in NAS and RAID arrays for many years and have never had problems outside of the normal range (and always within the warranty period). That "Stop buying WD RED NAS drives" video has been debunked and severely derided, and that happened right after it was released. His logic doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I prefer the PRO to the lesser PLUS drives, but I do use PLUS drives in the seldom-used offsite backup (which only runs when I'm backing up) and they work fine.
Chris
ALERT: The contents of the following post are in no way intended to bash optometrists.
I'm an old man. It seems that every year some jerk at some company decides to make the print smaller on every product I use. The instructions on a vial of eye drops are unreadable to the point where I have to put in the eye drops first so I can read the directions for use!
For over 20 years now, every year I complain to my optometrist about the conspiracy to make it harder for senior citizens to read directions without annual increases to the correction of their bifocals. Cleary my vison has never changed but the eye care industry needs the bucks so I play along and let them write new corrections and buy new glasses just to humor the doctor
He's an honorable sort of guy, shoots SONY mostly and has some amazing Alaskan king salmon and halibut trip pictures on his office walls from annual trips to Wrangle and Sitka. Paid for by me buying glasses I never really needed no doubt!
I may be myopic, but I know a conspiracy when I see one
Thank you. Get after Sandisk and make the world a better place for old timers like me to read labels.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Calson
Well-known member
This is quite misleading. I had a failed SD drive from Sandisk and simpy mailed it to them and two weeks later I received a replacement SSD. Same deal with a Lexar XQD card that had problems with my D500 camera. Life is too short to whine about problems that can be easily resolved if one exercises a little initiative.
I have been working with digital devices for the past 45 years and when something is failing or has failed it is faster to simply replace it and move on. I also check customer reviews before buying to avoid a device that many others have had problems with or where the manufacturer provides very poor post sale support. It is why I advise people to avoid anything from Dell or Asus as saving a few bucks is not worth ending up with a failed device that takes up a great deal of time to troubleshoot and ends up as a paperweight.