Throughout this year, the company's portable SSDs have received a lot of negative press due to unexpected failures of their SSD drives . All these problems have led to some accusations and the need for a firmware update for a defective batch of Western Digital external SSDs.
According to Western Digital, the update fixes the problems people are experiencing. But this week, a data recovery lab claimed the problem stems from hardware and manufacturing defects , as reported by Extremetech.
According to Western Digital, the problems with SanDisk SSDs are in the firmware
Being a widespread hardware failure, it would not be a problem that can be solved with a simple firmware update. But Western Digital has denied this claim. It is also reported that Western Digital has been using oversized components and poor quality soldering in its SanDisk portable SSDs. Both factors combined would have caused the system unit to disappear, because the necessary connections would end up failing.
That's the claim of a data recovery lab that has examined numerous faulty SanDisk drives. Their report includes photos of what appear to be cheap manufacturing practices, with defective soldering and loose components . One image shows bubbling solder and failed components, something the lab has found to be the norm.
Western Digital states that they follow industry guidelines and conduct rigorous testing on all their portable SSD products. They also state that they use " soldering paste from an industry-leading supplier ." Regarding failures caused by faulty hardware, they say they are working to gather more information.
