While it gave us no great joy to share reports flying around online from the past few months of SanDisk Portable SSDs apparently failing, and even wiping people’s data, we’re glad to see that Western Digital has stepped up and has released a new batch of firmware updates to address these issues.
There’s been an on-going issue for sometime now, and with staff members at The Verge and Ars Technica sharing first-hand experiences with faulty drives, it was quickly turning into a real dumpster fire for all involved.
Luckily some new firmware updates are on the way, so let’s quickly go over what you should look out for, and if you are an owner of SanDisk SSDs, we’ll share how you can get these updates ASAP.
Your Portable SSD May Require a Firmware Update
From a new statement released by Western Digital, the company has acknowledged that there have been reported problems with certain SanDisk SSDs and that they’re thankful to share that they’ve identified a firmware issue at the root of the issue that was causing some of their products to “unexpectedly disconnect from a computer.”
You can find firmware updates on Western Digital’s site here for the following products below:
- SanDisk Extreme Portable 4TB (SDSSDE61-4T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 4TB (SDSSDE81-4T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro 2TB (SDSSDE81-2T00)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro 1TB (SDSSDE81-1T00)
- WD My Passport 4TB (WDBAGF0040BGY)
To further address and resolve this issue, Western Digital has developed a new firmware updater tool that will allow for the needed firmware to be installed and to enable your continued use of your SSDs on your Windows or macOS devices.
Find out if your SanDisk Portable SSDs need an update
Credit: Western Digital
Will This Resolve All the Issues?
That’s really the question here. While there are of course many with SanDisk SSDs who haven’t experienced any issues, the fact that multiple journalists had drives fail on them is simply not good. Plus, to make matters worse, it appears that when concerns were raised, answers and solutions were not readily available.
It’s worth noting too that there have been firmware updates since these issues were first reported several months ago, so it can’t be completely a given that these updates will resolve everything.
Hopefully though, for any owners or users of SanDisk Extreme Portable SSDs or the My Passport SSD, they’ll be able to see this update info, check their serial numbers, and get the updates they need to safely and securely use and access their footage once again.
