Manufacturing issues with - some - SSD's

As a Data Recovery provider, DataLAB sees many clients with failed Solid State Disks (SSD's). We note the quality of manufacturing seems to vary wildly - sometimes even within the same brand. With more brands outsourcing manufacture and many more counterfeit drives on the market. We suggest you take care when buying an SSD.

You might expect an element of safety with established brands. However, sadly this is not always so. As an example, we are hearing more reports on issues with Western Digital SSDs. In our news item of 25th August 2023 "SSD data loss issue at SanDisk/Western Digital" we outlined a reported problem with multiple SSD's from Western Digital and SanDisk. Sadly this still seems to be an issue.

Whilst Western Digital / SanDisk are not the only manufacturer with issues like this. They are arguably the most prominent currently in the technical news for SSD problems. As an example, latest reports about SanDisk, suggest both design and production/manufacturing issues are at the route of their problem. What is happening is that some components are just too big for the circuit boards. They end up with weak connections and thus in turn are more likely to end up failing and losing your data. There also appears to be an issue with reports of cheap solder being used on some drives. These are not the sorts of problems that can be fixed by e.g. rolling out a firmware update. They are fundamental and can end up with you losing your data on that drive.

Our advice is that is you take care when purchasing SSD's. The counterfeit issue affects many brands and whilst, not yet widespread. It does mean that you may end up with a badly manufactured drive that will be more prone to failure. Also, we suggest that; if you have newer models of the SandDsk Extreme range, that you also back up the drive to another of a different make/model. We suggest you use a more traditional Hard Drive for most backup situations. They are cheaper and if they do fail, there is a much higher chance that your data can be recovered using a professional data recovery service such as DataLAB and at a relatively lower cost.

Please note there are no particular issues that we are aware of with Western Digital's other products such as their Hard Drives.