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      SanDisk Extreme SSDs are “worthless,” multiple lawsuits against WD say

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 18 August, 2023 - 19:25

    SanDisk Extreme SSDs are “worthless,” multiple lawsuits against WD say

    Enlarge (credit: SanDisk/Amazon )

    On Thursday, two more lawsuits were filed against Western Digital over its SanDisk Extreme series and My Passport portable SSDs. That brings the number of class-action complaints filed against Western Digital to three in two days.

    In May, Ars Technica reported about customer complaints that claimed SanDisk Extreme SSDs were abruptly wiping data and becoming unmountable. Ars senior editor Lee Hutchinson also experienced this problem with two Extreme SSDs. Western Digital, which owns SanDisk, released a firmware update in late May, saying that currently shipping products weren't impacted. But the company didn't mention customer complaints of lost data, only that drives could "unexpectedly disconnect from a computer."

    Further, last week The Verge claimed a replacement drive it received after the firmware update still wiped its data and became unreadable, and there are some complaints on Reddit pointing to recent problems with Extreme drives.

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      Western Digital, SanDisk Extreme SSDs don’t store data safely, lawsuit says

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 17 August, 2023 - 21:04

    SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2's are water-resistant, but are they erase-your-data-and-become-unmountable-resistant?

    Enlarge / SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2's are water-resistant, but are they erase-your-data-and-become-unmountable-resistant?

    Amid ongoing pressure to address claims that its SanDisk Extreme SSDs are still erasing data and becoming unmountable despite a firmware fix, Western Digital is facing a lawsuit over its storage drives. A lawsuit filed on Wednesday accuses the company of knowingly selling defective SSDs.

    Western Digital brand SanDisk's series of Extreme V2 and Extreme Pro V2 portable SSDs are often recommended by tech review sites. If you've considered a portable drive, it's likely you've come across the popular series in your search.

    However, numerous owners of the drives, including Ars Technica's own Lee Hutchinson, encountered a problem where the drives seemingly erased data and became unreadable. Lee saw two drives fill approximately halfway before showing read and write errors. Disconnecting and reconnecting showed the drive was unformatted and empty. Wiping and formatting didn't resolve things.

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      SanDisk’s silence deafens as high-profile users say Extreme SSDs still broken

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 10 August, 2023 - 17:42

    SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2.

    Enlarge / SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2. (credit: SanDisk )

    SanDisk's silence this week has been deafening. Its portable SSDs are being lambasted as users and tech publications call for them to be pulled. The recent scrutiny of the drives follows problems from this spring when users, including an Ars Technica staff member, saw Extreme-series portable SSDs wipe data and become unmountable. A firmware update was supposed to fix things, but new complaints dispute its effectiveness. SanDisk has stayed mum on recent complaints and hasn't explained what caused the problems.

    In May, Ars Technica reported on SanDisk Extreme V2 and Extreme Pro V2 SSDs wiping data before often becoming unreadable to the user's system. At least four months of complaints had piled up by then, including on SanDisk's forums and all over Reddit (examples one , two , and three ).

    Even Ars' Lee Hutchinson fell victim to the faulty drives. Two whole Extreme Pros died on him. Both times they filled about 50 percent and then showed a bunch of read and write errors. Upon disconnecting and reconnecting, the drive was unformatted and wiped, and he could not fix either drive by wiping and reformatting.

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      Western Digital HDD capacity hits 28TB as Seagate looks to 30TB and beyond

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Tuesday, 1 August, 2023 - 22:19 · 1 minute

    Western Digital is gearing up to sample its first 28TB HDDs to customers, around a year after announcing its first 26TB drives.

    Enlarge / Western Digital is gearing up to sample its first 28TB HDDs to customers, around a year after announcing its first 26TB drives. (credit: Western Digital)

    After a couple of decades of talk, Seagate announced earlier this year that it was shipping samples of huge 32TB hard drives using heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). The new kind of drive technology uses lasers to heat disk platters during writing, making it possible to store more data on a disk without increasing its physical size.

    But there's still a bit more capacity to be wrung out of older and more-proven recording technologies like perpendicular (or conventional) magnetic recording (PMR/CMR, often used interchangeably) and shingled magnetic recording (SMR); Western Digital announced this week that it's preparing to sample huge 28TB hard drives based on those technologies, a little over a year after announcing its first 26TB model .

    According to Tom's Hardware , WD uses energy-assisted perpendicular magnetic recording (ePMR) to fit up to 24TB of data on a single drive. SMR allows magnetic tracks to overlap slightly (like the shingles on a roof), allowing slightly more data to fit onto the same physical platters at the expense of write performance—this boosts the capacity of these drives to 28TB.

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      “Clearly predatory”: Western Digital sparks panic, anger for age-shaming HDDs

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 12 June, 2023 - 20:01 · 1 minute

    western digital red plus nas hard drive

    Enlarge (credit: Western Digital )

    When should you be concerned about a NAS hard drive failing? Multiple factors are at play, so many might turn to various SMART (self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology) data . When it comes to how long the drive has been active, there are backup companies like Backblaze using hard drives that are nearly 8 years old. That may be why some customers have been panicked, confused, and/or angered to see their Western Digital NAS hard drive automatically given a warning label in Synology's DiskStation Manager (DSM) after they were powered on for three years. With no other factors considered for these automatic flags, Western Digital is accused of age-shaming drives to push people to buy new HDDs prematurely.

    The practice's revelation is the last straw for some users. Western Digital already had a steep climb to win back NAS customers' trust after shipping NAS drives with SMR (shingled magnetic recording) instead of CMR (conventional magnetic recording). Now, some are saying they won't use or recommend the company's hard drives anymore.

    “Warning,” your NAS drive’s been on for 3 years

    As users have reported online, including on Synology-focused and Synology's own forums , as well as on Reddit and YouTube, Western Digital drives using Western Device Digital Analytics ( WDDA ) are getting a "warning" stamp in Synology DSM once their power-on hours count hits the three-year mark. WDDA is similar to SMART monitoring and rival offerings, like Seagate's IronWolf , and is supposed to provide analytics and actionable items.

    The recommended action says: "The drive has accumulated a large number of power on hours [throughout] the entire life of the drive. Please consider to replace the drive soon." There seem to be no discernible problems with the hard drives otherwise.

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      Choisir le meilleur SSD pour sa PS5 : conseils et sélection de 5 modèles

      news.movim.eu / Numerama · Sunday, 28 May, 2023 - 08:45

    À l'heure où la plupart des triple-A pèsent facilement 100 Go en version numérique, l'espace de stockage de la PlayStation 5 vous laisse que peu de place pour stocker votre bibliothèque de jeux. Heureusement, il existe de nombreux SSD compatibles avec la dernière console de Sony. Numerama vous guide pour choisir le meilleur SSD pour votre PS5. [Lire la suite]

    Abonnez-vous aux newsletters Numerama pour recevoir l’essentiel de l’actualité https://www.numerama.com/newsletter/

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      Users fume after My Cloud network breach locks them out of their data

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Monday, 3 April, 2023 - 19:07

    Users fume after My Cloud network breach locks them out of their data

    Enlarge (credit: Western Digital )

    Users of the Western Digital My Cloud service are fuming after a network breach has locked them out of their data for more than 24 hours and has put company-handled information into the hands of currently unknown hackers.

    The inability to access data stored in My Cloud was reported on social media by multiple users, including this one , who indicated the outage started sometime on Saturday. Since then, the number of users (and their anxiety levels) have only ratcheted up.

    Sounds like ransomware

    By early morning California time on Monday, Western Digital issued a release saying that a week ago Sunday the company learned that an “unauthorized third party gained access to a number of the Company’s systems.” The release added: “​​Based on the investigation to date, the Company believes the unauthorized party obtained certain data from its systems and is working to understand the nature and scope of that data.”

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      La règle 3-2-1 réduit vos risques de perdre toutes vos données

      news.movim.eu / Numerama · Friday, 31 March, 2023 - 16:17

    Le 31 mars est la journée mondiale de la sauvegarde informatique L'occasion de rappeler quelques règles élémentaires d'hygiène informatique pour minimiser le risque de pertes de données. [Lire la suite]

    Abonnez-vous aux newsletters Numerama pour recevoir l’essentiel de l’actualité https://www.numerama.com/newsletter/

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      Western Digital starts selling 44TB of external HDD storage for $1,100

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 15 February, 2023 - 18:14 · 1 minute

    Western Digital My Book Duo

    Enlarge / Western Digital's My Book Duo has two 3.5-inch HDDs inside. (credit: Western Digital)

    Western Digital today announced bigger-capacity versions of its My Book and dual-drive My Book Duo external hard disk drives (HDDs). The new 22TB and 44TB offerings represent some of the roomiest consumer offerings the company has ever offered.

    Targeting people needing large-scale options and prioritizing price per GB over speed, the new external storage devices consist of one (in the case of the 22TB My Book) or two (My Book Duo) 3.5-inch drives. Western Digital's announcement today said the 22TB My Book is its "highest capacity consumer drive ever," but, as noted by Tom's Hardware , the company started selling 22TB network-attached storage (NAS) drives ($400 MSRP as of writing) in July. But with the My Book line offering the components neatly packed into an enclosure and ready to live on top of a desk as backup storage, the series has broader appeal.

    The My Book Duo, which Western Digital had already been selling in 16TB to 36TB capacities, also adds ports to your setup. It has a USB-C port supporting up to 5Gbps for connecting to systems and also gives you two USB-A ports.

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