Anyone else have a similar experience with one of these drives?

  • Brkdncr
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    92 years ago

    3tb of unprotected data? And it’s the 2nd time it’s happened? Raid1 has existed for a few years and seems pretty reliable.

    • FuglyDuck
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      32 years ago

      Try decades. Raid 1 has been around since the 70’s raid 5 since ‘86

      • @[email protected]
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        162 years ago

        Lots of people in this thread bitching and moaning, not realizing what it means working with hundreds of gigs of video data a day

  • @[email protected]
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    112 years ago

    It’s funny how the loss of storage space can be valued diffently. If it’s 3TB of of video footage for a newspaper, that’s weeks if not months of work and money lost. But it could also just be the last 3 Call of Duty’s with patches.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    I know these comments are going to be full of people touting the virtues of having backup drives, NAS, or other high level data protection, but am I the crazy one? Knock on wood, I know nothing lasts forever, but I have decade+ old usb drives still going strong. How do they burn through so many externals?

    • SeaJ
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      12 years ago

      They may have been doing video editing on it. That can be a good amount of read/writes that will wear down a drive.

      Vjeran is a supervising producer of a tech site. He should know to back shit up. I’m sure a site as big as The Verge has decent cloud backup.

    • Boozilla
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      32 years ago

      I think selection bias is part of it, we tend to hear from the folks who run into issues more than the folks who don’t. I also think a drive that sits on a desktop or in a drawer most of the time in an air-conditioned house will last much longer than one that’s often thrown into a bag and transported in vehicles, airports, etc.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Right, we need more positive articles like “We just didn’t lose 3TB of data on a Sandisk SSD!.. Yep, the data is still there!”

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      Chances are your decade old USB sticks didn’t go through as much read/write operations as those 3tb ssds

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Maybe not. I don’t mean sticks though, I mean full size mechanical external drives. Not even solid state. On my 3TB, I’ve probably done about 10TB of writes (video backup, transfers, etc)

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    “I put 3TB of irreplaceable data on a single drive, and want to blame anyone but myself for my data loss”

    Go away with this garbage.

    I personally have a NAS with 12TB striped over 3 drives, I sure wouldn’t blame WD if one drive failed and I lost everything.

    E: this whole comment section is why tech illiterate people shouldn’t really comment on hardware failures like this. The only fact that is know is that the verge faced 2 drive failures and lost 3TB of data due to a lack of safe data storage practices. If they were tech literate they wouldn’t have lost any data.

    The verge did not confirm the mode of failure, and therefore the second failure could’ve been completely unrelated to the firmware issue. Nobody knows anything, other than the verge needs to educate themselves on how to properly store irreplaceable data.

    • Zima
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      12 years ago

      I hope you are using a UPS or some form of offline storage if you really can’t afford to loose your data.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        I said I couldn’t care about the data, which is the only reason why I’m running a striped pool

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Correct. My next build will be redundant but given that my truenas pool is only storing movies, shows, music and porn, I don’t much care if I lose the contents due to a drive failure

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      Let’s see you bring your raid NAS on an out of country video shoot.

      Edit: Misread the comment. My reply isn’t addressing the actual point he made.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        God you guys are all dense.

        When did I say a NAS was the correct solution here? I’m just pointing out that I’m not absolved from poor data storage practices. But that I’m only doing it becauss I don’t care about the data.

        The verge should know better, and including anything about their lost data in this shows they have no journalistic integrity. Reports the news, with proof that WD didn’t fix the issue. Don’t report that you suck at training your employees.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I get your point now. It really does sound like you were suggesting that they should’ve used a NAS instead at first read. Maybe a clearer paragraph structure would’ve helped you get your point across easier.

    • electromage
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      42 years ago

      These drives have a very different use case than a rack mount NAS. They’re portable ruggedized devices for field use, like dumping content from your camera so you can keep shooting. Two would be better but it sounds like a known flaw that is causing random, frequent losses.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        God you guys are all dense.

        When did I say a NAS was the correct solution here? I’m just pointing out that I’m not absolved from poor data storage practices. But that I’m only doing it becauss I don’t care about the data.

        The verge should know better, and including anything about their lost data in this shows they have no journalistic integrity. They simply want to pull your heartstrings for a hit piece with no actual proof. Reports the news, with proof that WD didn’t fix the issue. Don’t report that you suck at training your employees.

    • @[email protected]
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      612 years ago

      The claim here seems to be that the product has an unusual failure rate, the manufacturer has acknowledged the original problem and released a fix, and it does not appear to be fixed. I don’t read it as a sob story about some reporter’s lost data.

      • @[email protected]
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        82 years ago

        Given the verges track record on tech reporting, i wouldn’t put faith in their journalistic integrity of a hit piece unless they show a bit more than “look, i lost a drive after they said they fixed the issue. They’re lying!”

        • @[email protected]
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          112 years ago

          Either you have an axe to grind or don’t really follow The Verge. What “track record” are you talking about here?

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            They have a history of tech misreporting. It’s not new news.

            When you get a bunch of tech illiterate people to write tech articles, you get a bunch of garbage reporting. Including this. They haven’t back up their claims. No actual analysis of the failure point of the drives. They don’t show any proof that their 2 drive failures are even related other than they’re the same drive model. And even then, they didn’t include the exact sku

            • @[email protected]
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              42 years ago

              They have a history of tech misreporting. It’s not new news.

              This does not add anything to the discussion. They had that infamous PC build video (for which they apologized and which they retracted) but that’s the only thing I can remember in the years I’ve been following them.

              Also, providing a detailed technical analysis was not the scope of the article. Maybe you don’t follow them very much, but they usually don’t do this kind of things. They mostly cover internet culture, how technology impacts society, etc., because that’s their scope. This does not mean the editors are tech illiterate. The point of the article was to say that WD drives fail a lot; some publications are reporting that while some others don’t say anything; and the company is ignoring the problem.

              I agree that the tone of the article is pretty butt-hurt and whiny, but that’s a problem of style and not of substance

    • @[email protected]
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      172 years ago

      Ooh ooooh look at me everybody I’m so much smarter than this IDIOT that expected the devices he PAID FOR to work as advertised and the company to be honest and straightforward with firmware issues and updates

      I run this better system than NORMIES and even if it fails (because I’m an idiot) I DONT CARE ABOUT THE DATA on them because iT DiDn’T mATteR tO Me iN tHe fIrSt PlAcE.

      PS For people wondering about the second paragraph, check this guy’s other comments in this thread.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      You don’t have to deal with using a USB to SATA adapter and the drive has a built in enclosure so you can just shove it into a bag or pocket

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Is no one mentioning the speed, it can easily go 500+ mbps even with older gen type c ports.

      Great if you’re working on large files or installing games even.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    752 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    This isn’t a drive he purchased many months or years ago — it’s the supposedly safe replacement that Western Digital recently sent after his original wiped his data all by itself.

    SanDisk issued a firmware fix for a variety of drives in late May, shortly after our story.

    But data recovery services can be expensive, and Western Digital never offered Vjeran any the first time it left him out to dry.

    Honestly, it feels like WD has been trying to sweep this under the rug while it tries to offload its remaining inventory at a deep discount — they’re still 66 percent off at Amazon, for example.

    Unfortunately, the broken state of the internet means Western Digital doesn’t have to work very hard to keep selling these drives.

    I’d also like to say shame on CNET, Cult of Mac and G/O Media’s The Inventory for writing deal posts about this drive that don’t warn their readers at all.


    I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • @[email protected]
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      92 years ago

      I wonder if it’d be worth returning if you’re still in the window. I don’t know how common the issues are though. Maybe check out the Ars Technica article someone linked?

      • FuglyDuck
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        62 years ago

        Yeah, I wouldn’t suggest buying the huge sales at amazon for ssd’s.

        They probably pulled the bad drives back from merchant stock to avoid getting returns. Those frequently wind up on Amazon as huge sales.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          Not always. Their prime day and Black Friday deals are usually pretty solid. I’ve gotten drives the last 2 prime days, and a black Friday 4 years ago, and they’ve lasted the couple years I’ve had them, and last years 2tb is fine in my PS5 so far.

          I’d be wary of any sk hynix ones though. I can almost guarantee those are always ripped out of old builds, because that’s where all of mine have come from.

    • @[email protected]
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      42 years ago

      You’re probably fine, all drives have failures and I haven’t seen anything to indicate this is a widespread issue with the drive.

      • Muddybulldog
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        2 years ago

        The manufacturer has acknowledged it’s an issue and has issued at least one patched firmware. This isn’t a “luck of the draw” or isolated issue.

  • @[email protected]
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    4802 years ago

    What the fuck are all these comments?

    It’s an article about an unresolved and recurring problem with a popular drive that the ostensibly reputable manufacturer is trying to hide.

    But 90% of the comments are people jerking themselves off about how smart they are for using RAID, which is irrelevant to the point of the article… But never miss an opportunity to pleasure yourself in public I guess?

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      Did you read the article? Because as far as I can see it fails to actually say shit about the problem. From just this article I can see why people are blaming the author for not having redundancy.

      The Arstechnica articles however do actually say what’s going on, so yeah this appears to be a real issue with these drives disconnecting.

    • @[email protected]
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      192 years ago

      My only counter argument is that the verge article should also have stuck to the failures/defect, and either not mentioned their own dataloss, or at least mention possible mitigation strategies. I understand not everyone can do proper backups, but the verge can, and they should lead by example.

      As for a comment on the actual drive defect, this is probably one of those cases where you want to insist on a refund. If the problem is as widespread as claimed, then getting a new defective drive doesn’t really help. WD/sandisk should just be recalling and refunding all devices. It’s odd that tech stuff never seems to have recalls in the same way that cars do? They seem to just rely on individual RMAs.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Aren’t usually recalls mostly for cases where it would cause personal injuries and as such the damages to the company are far bigger than not doing the recall.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          Yeah it’s probably a risk/damages calculation. But imagine if WD had simply recalled all affected devices. Might mitigate some of the PR damage?

    • @[email protected]
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      412 years ago

      I didn’t believe you but yeeeeeesh. Lots of self righteous penises ITT. If people buy an expensive hard drive, it should work. Not everyone knows everything there is to know about data storage, have a little grace people

    • @[email protected]
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      1352 years ago

      Lemmy definitely showing the same symptoms as Reddit as it grows. Too many people trying to show off how technically smart they are and just come off as obnoxious dweebs

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        And what’s most important is you putting smart people down to make yourself feel superior to them

      • @[email protected]
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        122 years ago

        Lemmy guess… this is your 2nd go with a social media platform?

        Lemmy sit you down on my knee son and let grandpa here explain how social media worked in his old times of facebook just like I sat on my grandpappys knee and he explained to me the days of AIM.

        /s

      • @[email protected]
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        582 years ago

        I don’t know why people think that this behavior would ever be restricted to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc.?

        There’s one common element in all these systems…

        • @[email protected]
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          312 years ago

          The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with sharing knowledge or pointing out best practices. What sucks is people replying JUST to point out the flaws and then gloat, without even fully comprehending what happened in the article. But this behavior has been around way longer than reddit.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            I feel it’s the same kind of people who complain regarding the same questions popping up at a forum often. I don’t get why they can’t just ignore them? Sure you could maybe find the answer by googling but sometimes you want to interact with others. Plus you might learn things you didn’t know you should also have asked.

            My feeling is that Stackexchange is the place that has taken this the furthest with the result that new people can neither ask any questions nor get any points to get more rights on the site.

        • oce 🐆
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          102 years ago

          It think it has always been there, it’s part of the internet and tech culture. Lemmy is not going to magically change that. We can try to make it better by writing good contributions and supporting those who do.

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      Why is your comment with so many upvotes but I still had to scroll down to find it. Everything above is kinda morbid. Im glad I scrolled enough, was worried a bit 🤣

    • Dr. Dabbles
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      402 years ago

      What, you don’t do RAID-6 and carry around 5 external USB drives to move your data between locations? It’s just so convenient. 🤣

      Seriously, I don’t get the raid comments at all.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      But never miss an opportunity to pleasure yourself in public I guess?

      I mean I wasn’t really in the mood but I’ll rub one out just for you

    • Maximilious
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      82 years ago

      Then the article title should be less click bait termed and properly address that there’s a major firmware fault in the drives.

      Journalism is lost on generating clicks and user turmoil rather than servicing the public in any way.

      • stopthatgirl7
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        172 years ago

        Or maybe people should actually read articles first instead of commenting based off just reading the “click bait“ headline?

        • PupBiru
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          42 years ago

          are we not allowed to comment on the meta of the article as well as the substance of the article? i guess we need to stop complaining about paywalls and excessive inline ads too then

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          I read the article, it’s also shit and fails to properly talk about the issue instead of ranting about data loss.

    • @[email protected]
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      232 years ago

      Lol this place is half a circle jerk of people who think they’re certified geniuses for rejecting mainstream technology, tech hipsters. There was a thread about Google’s “safe browsing” thing and most of the comments were just "iMaGiNe UsInG gOoGle!!*

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      irrelevant to the point of the article

      What are you talking about? Of course it’s relevant.

      Hard drives are unreliable, they always have been and they probably always will be.

      I’ve personally had three drives fail in the last 12 months - two HDDs and one SSD. And both of those were internal hard drives either in a data center or at least on a desk in a properly climate controlled office. All three of them were from far more reputable manufacturers than WD. I suspect none of those failures were the actual disk by the way pretty sure they were all chipset or firmware failures.

      Your solution doesn’t have to be RAID, but it has to be something better than “I’ll just keep this file on a single drive”.

      WD should absolutely do better - but at the same time even if they did do better it still wouldn’t be good enough. There shouldn’t be any data loss when (not if) a drive fails.

        • PupBiru
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          72 years ago

          there are 2 discussions happening: 1 about the product the article is talking about, and another about the tangentially related topic of disk failure in general

          i see no problem here… or are we only allowed to discuss the specific points the article mentions now and absolutely under no circumstances are we allowed to have discussions about anything else…?

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          Second paragraph of the article: “My colleague Vjeran just lost 3TB of video”.

          It’s not just the title, the entire article is about data loss. To be honest what really bothers me about the article is the whole thing points fingers at WD for making a mistake, while conveniently ignoring that fact that a Verge employee also made a mistake and I’d argue a worse one by failing to backup their data.

          If the article was about “it’s annoying to have to wait for a replacement drive to be sent” then I’d be right on board. But that’s not what the article is about.

          • phillaholic
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            132 years ago

            No… the company trying to hide the fact that their product is defective is the point here. Lost data or not, people are paying for a product that’s defective. End of story.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 years ago

    “I trusted all my important data to a single point of failure and now I’m screwed”.

    So, yes, I respect that SanDisk’s drive may have a manufacturing defect and that sucks but they have to share the blame for this. Seriously, drive mirroring is a thing and every single OS supports it out of the box. A proper RAID system is a thing and even better. Adding duplicate storage, be it cloud, another NAS or backing up to tape is even better still. It’s the 21st century, you should know that by now if your literal job is based on storing data.

  • Betty White In HD
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    112 years ago

    I’d also like to say shame on CNET, Cult of Mac and G/O Media’s The Inventory for writing deal posts about this drive that don’t warn their readers at all. I can’t stop rolling my eyes at this graf in particular:

    What an absolute little fucking whiner. Electronics fail sometimes, it sucks, but that’s the truth. It doesn’t even sound like he discovered any kind of concrete systematic issue here, he’s just bitching because they lost a bunch of footage. Tech journalists are almost as bad as video game journalists.

    • Zima
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      62 years ago

      You also need some moral ground before you shame others. the verge does not have it.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        I mean, the article bit they quote is kinda crazy:

        “I haven’t tested the SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD, but I have used many SanDisk products over the decades. The company built a reputation for quality products that, in my experience, it deserves.”

        Also, why would the Verge not have moral high ground? They are one of the most respected tech sites around