Sandisk: 4TB Extreme Pro SSDs can lose data, firmware fix on the way

Sandisk says it will soon release a firmware update for its external 4TB Extreme Pro SSDs. These may be affected by data loss. 2TB models most likely show that problem as well.

Showing the Sandisk external SSDs according to Ars Technica problems after large write operations. Then it can happen that read-write errors occur, after which the file system disappears completely and the drive becomes unmounted. After that, it is arbitrary whether the data on the SSD can still be retrieved, but that is often not possible.

That problem seems to occur at least with the 2TB and 4TB Extreme Pro SSDs from the WD subsidiary. Sandisk is now confirming the existence of this bug, after several months of forum posts complaining about it, in the form of confirmation of an upcoming firmware update that should fix it. That is being made for the 4TB variant of the Extreme Pro and the Extreme Portable and will be coming ‘soon’. The company is not commenting on issues or fixes for the 2TB drives.

Research by Ars Technica seems to indicate that the problems occur with recently purchased SSDs. A user would have heard from a Japanese distributor that these are SSDs with a manufacturing date of November 2022 and later, but this could not be confirmed. When asked, Sandisk did not provide information about possible refunds for affected users, nor about replacements.