p.1 #1 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
Several varieties of the Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Pro SSDs have been widely reported to be defect-prone and to fail with loss of data at higher frequency rates than expected. The Extreme Pro 4TB version seemed especially likely to fail, but there were also reliable reports (e.g., in Ars Technica) of high failure rates in the Extreme version of the 4TB drive and in the 2TB versions of both the Extreme Pro and the Extreme SSDs. These problems were reported to occur only in drives manufactured through late 2022. Sandisk has recently released a firmware upgrade which is supposed to fix the defect in drives with affected serial numbers. To determine the serial number of a drive, the retail packaging must be opened, making it non-returnable if one discovers that one has an affected drive. The procedure for the firmware update appears to be noisome.
Does anyone know if the 4TB and 2TB drives currently being sold by B&H are the latest version of the drives that don't require an update?
The same information for other sellers would also be of interest.
Has anyone gone through the firmware update and has comments about it?
p.1 #2 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
I just tried the very basic updater executable from AsMedia on my late 2022 4TB Extreme Pro (containing a 4TB WD SN850XE). It has no input interface and running it just updates the applicable connected SSD. It then presents a message to disconnect/reconnect the device or it indicates that the device is up to date if that is the case. My only complaint is that there should be an interface with a Yes/No option rather than it just starting blindly.
I had no issues with the SSD prior to the update. Crystal now indicates FW 624131EX. I don't know what it was previously, but it was different.
p.1 #3 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
EB-1 wrote:
I just tried the very basic updater executable from AsMedia on my late 2022 4TB Extreme Pro (containing a 4TB WD SN850XE). It has no input interface and running it just updates the applicable connected SSD. It then presents a message to disconnect/reconnect the device or it indicates that the device is up to date if that is the case. My only complaint is that there should be an interface with a Yes/No option rather than it just starting blindly.
I had no issues with the SSD prior to the update. Crystal now indicates FW 624131EX. I don't know what it was previously, but it was different.
p.1 #5 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
chiron wrote:
Several varieties of the Sandisk Extreme and Extreme Pro SSDs have been widely reported to be defect-prone and to fail with loss of data at higher frequency rates than expected. The Extreme Pro 4TB version seemed especially likely to fail, but there were also reliable reports (e.g., in Ars Technica) of high failure rates in the Extreme version of the 4TB drive and in the 2TB versions of both the Extreme Pro and the Extreme SSDs. These problems were reported to occur only in drives manufactured through late 2022. Sandisk has recently released a firmware upgrade which is supposed to fix the defect in drives with affected serial numbers. To determine the serial number of a drive, the retail packaging must be opened, making it non-returnable if one discovers that one has an affected drive. The procedure for the firmware update appears to be noisome.
Does anyone know if the 4TB and 2TB drives currently being sold by B&H are the latest version of the drives that don't require an update?
The same information for other sellers would also be of interest.
Has anyone gone through the firmware update and has comments about it?...Show more →
I did the update on a recently purchased 4TB. Quick and easy, but it does require a Windows PC. I didn't notice any issues with the SSD prior but when I plugged in the serial number a message recommended I run the update.
Also, I had already reformatted this External SSD to Apple's APFS and the SanDisk update ran just fine from a Windows PC in case anyone is interested.
p.1 #6 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
LBJ2 wrote:
I did the update on a recently purchased 4TB. Quick and easy, but it does require a Windows PC. I didn't notice any issues with the SSD prior but when I plugged in the serial number a message recommended I run the update.
Also, I had already reformatted this External SSD to Apple's APFS and the SanDisk update ran just fine from a Windows PC in case anyone is interested.
That's good to know. One of my concerns was updating a Mac-formatted drive on a Windows PC. I wasn't confident about hwo well that would work.
p.1 #7 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
I updated one Extreme Pro SSD with a filesystem unknown to the OS and it is fine.
WD went cheap with the updater. I don't know why it wasn't integrated with the WD Dashboard utility.
p.1 #9 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
SanDisk 4TB and 2 TB Extreme Portable SSD V2
2 new colors >>>>> At B&H website >>> New Item - Coming Soon - THIS coming soon is at least now for 2 maybe 3 weeks
It make me think this new drives could be on hold for distribution for some reasons/issues
Better wait ( at least I don't risk my files again with this drives for some more time. And the way SanDisk is not doing much to fix and make an official statement it does not help. Yes they now have this update, but I am not sure if this will fix all the problems )
p.1 #10 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
I doubt new colors are anything other than a marketing plan. I suppose you could order different colors from the dark navy to be sure that they are new. Many products are advertised on the web for months before being available, so I'm not sure that means anything. I decided not to buy any more though.
p.1 #11 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
EB-1 wrote:
I doubt new colors are anything other than a marketing plan. I suppose you could order different colors from the dark navy to be sure that they are new.
EBH
I do agree - but my point is - this drives with bad ( software - firmware issues ) could be still there. So this could mean this 2 new colors will still face the same problems if there was not changes inside
p.1 #12 · Status of Sandisk Extreme & Extreme Pro SSDs
I hardly trust anyone nowadays. The best you can do is buy one and test it heavily, what we used to call burn in, for about a week or so. IOmeter is good for hammering the drive with writes. Then buy a few more from the same batch and do shorter testing before use. I'm thinking it may be the NVMe-USB bridge. Just changing the FW typically mitigates the highest power levels where failures mught occur, but often doesn't really fix a product with hardware design defects.
