Anyone else have a similar experience with one of these drives?
Someone didn’t read the story. This is about a known firmware fault that the company is doing its best not to keep quiet. Don’t help them in that work
They included a large number of words after the headline that expound on the topic.
So because backups exist, everyone should be okay with buying bad hardware?
I know you’re not actually saying that, but countering “this is a known firmware fault” with a reminder that backups should be done sure makes it look like you’re saying that. There’s still value in making sure consumers’ money goes to products that last.
There is absolutely nothing to say that the author didn’t have it backed up. He still lost 3TB of files from a new drive which was a replacement sent by the company, with a known fault supposedly fixed.
“Herp derp he should have backed up” is not the takeaway here”
“I have a defective drive, therefore all drives are defective”
Storage can fail at any time, that’s why important data should be backed up.
Dunno what more to expect from the Verge. Have they tried putting thermal paste on it?
I did read it, and that was the point that jumped out at me as worth commenting on.
The rest of the WD RMA fuckery wasn’t really that unexpected, although definitely disappointing. If the article had focused on that I wouldn’t even have commented.
I have since found out that these drives are used as the storage for some video cameras, which is definitely a use case where backups are not feasible, and maybe that is what happened to the Verge.
But in all other uses, we should strive to have backups for our data, and given most people don’t backup correctly (myself included) it’s always worth having a reminder of the that… And to be clear, I’m not saying you need to have RAID99 zfs, even a second disk with a manual copy could save a ton of heartache and stress.
In the article they point out their first drive failed and sandisk replaced it. Now the replacement is dying in the same way. And the drive just so happens to be on clearance now, as if they’re trying to clear out stock.
Also, it’s an SSD, so it’s not a mechanical failure.
SSDs can fail at random as well. Often with less warning. It’s definitely newsworthy that there are lots of these failures, but the “We lost 3tb of data” angle is bullshit. The correct response to a USB drive dying should be “Bummer, RMA it, and get a copy from the NAS/cloud/resilient storage”
It’s not bullshit. The Verge is a consumer website. It’s absolutely relevant to inform consumers of a drive during twice and a company perhaps trying to cover up a defect in this way. The rest of us don’t care about what the verge does with their data, we care if it happens to us if we buy the product. I don’t care if I have a backup, I don’t want to buy an unreliable product.
I get what you’re saying, but this was about the RMA replacement also failing.
In 2 months though?
The fact that it was a known issue, should have clued them in that maybe it should be used for memes, NFTs, and other crap that means absolutely nothing in the real world.
Are you willing to accept an article from Ars Technica? https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/05/sandisk-extreme-ssds-keep-abruptly-failing-firmware-fix-for-only-some-promised/
Do you think it’s not newsworthy if a manufacturer sells drives with a history of failures, releases a firmware update they claim will fix the issue, sends a replacement drive that also fails, and continues to sell the drives at a deep discount?
It’s definitely newsworthy, and the ars article is at least a bit more balanced. My main issue is the “I trusted my data to a single USB device, and was then furious when it died” clickbait. These journalists should know better than to store critical data in a single place.
If you can’t RMA the drives then that is a bigger problem, but that comes down to the consumer protection laws you have in your country.
These journalists should know better than to store critical data in a single place.
This again. Kindly point out to me where in the article they say they do not have another copy of that data. This is not an article about backup strategies, it is about repeated hardware failure and a known issue that is not being addressed by its manufacturer while selling affected drives at discount price.
This is exactly why I invested 250x the cost of one SSD into my raid setup. It’s 100 SSD’s in raid1 in a huge rack which slides vertically on 4 guide poles.
I sit under the contraption and lean forward as far as I can, before lowering it onto my back. This method allows me to suck my own cock with ease, so that I don’t need to fellate myself on public forums
I hope you’re getting off on redundancy and not a backup. Because RAID.is.not.a.backup.
Raid doesnt even protect against bit rot either. It doesn’t matter how many disks you write to even in a raid one array you are still vulnerable. Unless you have a high end raid card that does block level checksuming your raid array will not go back and verify previously written to data is still correct. If it does have checksuming it still isn’t smart enough to know which drive is the is correct and will lock the array in the best case.
so that I don’t need to fellate myself on public forums
But you still do anyway, because you like the way it feels
“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.
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.
I hope you are using a UPS or some form of offline storage if you really can’t afford to loose your data.
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.
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!”
Either you have an axe to grind or don’t really follow The Verge. What “track record” are you talking about here?
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.
So they just had this one drive fail and they decided to make a big news article about it? Hardware fails sometimes. Just RMA the thing and shut the fuck up about it. Go build a gaming PC.
Did you read the article? Two drives, not one. In 3 months. By the same company. Who is aware of a problem, is trying to hide it, and pushed a firmware update that did not work. Also this second drive was a “safer” replacement the company sent the guy after the first one failed. I say an article about the whole situation is fully warranted
