PSA: DO NOT BUY a SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD!!

[rm5]

I have owned a 1 TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD for about two years, and it has shown signs of failure. Yes, an SSD--considered to be the most reliable way to store data--is failing. And apparently I am not alone in this, as I've spotted numerous bad reviews around the internet with people complaining of the same thing. Initially, I thought it was an operating system issue, but I've tested it in both my PC and Mac, and it has the same issue. Reformatting is no use--I've tried that maybe four times by now.

Signs of failure include:

• Finder/File Explorer not loading the drive, or freezing when you try to mount or open it.
• Clicking "New Folder" and File Explorer/Finder freezing. Takes ages to actually create the new folder.
• Freezing when opening files.
• Audio/video files either corrupted, don't play at all, or stick in the middle of playback.

Of course, this is not a complete list, but these are the issues I've experienced, personally.

So, unless you want to risk data loss, please don't buy one of these! It's very frustrating for me, because now, not only do I have to buy a new drive (from a different brand, obviously), but also, I didn't know it was going to fail when I bought it! So just putting this out there to people who might be considering purchasing one.

 

[Slartibart]

Sorry for you. The problem exists for a while for several Sandisk SSD product models and series. E.g. Samsung‘s T series is the wiser choice.

 

[Clix Pix]

I have been using external SSDs for a long time now, and (knock on wood) have not had any issues with any of them, and I've used several brands: SanDisk, Samsung's T series, G-Drive, etc., etc. Interestingly, the other day I ran across some of my older Samsung T3's which according to the sticker/label I had put on them had data on them and I thought, "hm, I should check and see if this data is still even accessible." Yep, both drives mounted and opened right and all the data is intact. I still am not planning to use either of them for something seriously important, though, and will just leave what's on there on each of them. (And, yes, it is also available on some of my more current drives as well.)

SanDisk did have a problem for a while with some issues. I think I was lucky enough to avoid those because the first thing I always do when getting a new external SSD is to reformat it and remove the proprietary data that most manufacturers seem to put on there. I don't need that and it takes up space on the drive for which I have better uses. I have noticed that in many of the reports of problems with external SSDs, especially SanDisk, that most of the time the user has indeed retained that proprietary data.

After I wrote this I remembered that I did have issues briefly with formatting one new SanDisk drive, and that occurred right around the time we'd just gotten a new Mac OS and I think also when Apple was still refining the APFS file system. I was able to resolve my problem by going to a friend's home since she had not yet updated her machine to the latest OS and I formatted my drive on her machine, brought it home, plugged it into my own machine and everything was fine after that.

I also always reformat to APFS since that is the current file system Apple is using and this is a wholly Mac household, no Windows in sight! I realize that for those who do have a mix of Macs and Windows machines it would be desirable, maybe even quite important, to be able to swap data between machines, so that does present the possibility of potential problems.

The other thing which I do is to duplicate everything so that I am not reliant on only one source for protection and saving of my data and image files. I keep one set of external SSDs in my safe deposit box at one of my banks, plus one or more sets at home. I am not real keen on using the Cloud for storing my personal and private data so prefer to keep everything local.

 

[edubfromktown]

I have a 1 TB Extreme Pro Portable SSD purchased in 2021 that has been trouble free.

According to ARS Technica's article from May 2023: "this problem is causing a fuss and is only for those manufactured after November 2022" (Ars couldn't confirm this). The Reddit user ian__, who claimed to be collecting error reports to share with SanDisk, agreed that the issue only affects recent batches. And some users said they used several Extreme and Extreme Pros over the years but only saw ones purchased recently fail."

You can check to determine if your your serial number is affected on WD's firmware update site. I had to illuminate the s/n on the back of my drive using my phone flashlight to see it.

 

[MBAir2010]

they are hit and miss, Sandisk products and i always misspell their name and deemed a perv...

i have 3 USB thumb drives from 2022 as the blue one works great, the silver heats up and the ebony one stalls.
my 128GB 2020 lighting usb thumb drive is the worse drive i ever owned, but the software is a fault since that is okay by itself, not used for an Ipad.

as far as their parent company Western Digital, they never cease to fail as my 2010 drive still works today!
What i do from now on is buy enclosures and ssd blades separately
were a drive might fail i can replace that instead of the plastic membrane.

 

[edubfromktown]

they are hit and miss, Sandisk products and i always misspell their name and deemed a perv...

i have 3 USB thumb drives from 2022 as the blue one works great, the silver heats up and the ebony one stalls.
my 128GB 2020 lighting usb thumb drive is the worse drive i ever owned, but the software is a fault since that is okay by itself, not used for an Ipad.

as far as their parent company Western Digital, they never cease to fail as my 2010 drive still works today!
What i do from now on is buy enclosures and ssd blades separately
were a drive might fail i can replace that instead of the plastic membrane.

I made my own external drives recently using SABRENT (EC-T3NS) TB 3 M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure and Kingston KC3000 PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSD (SKC3000S/1024G). Got two of them to test RAID-0 and individual external drive performance.

Using Amorphous benchmark:
The Sandisk Extreme Pro 1 TB came in at 1021 MB/s read/1021 MB/s write
A single Sabrent/Kingston 3000 1 TB came in at 1650 read/1485 write
Raid 0 Sabrent/Kingston 3000 1 TB's plugged into back ports of M1 Studio Base Max came in at 3342 read/2940 write

In practical use, my external drive hosted Lighroom Classic (LrC) catalog is a little too slow using the SanDisk, plenty fast with the Sabrent/Kingston single drive, snappier with RAID-0 Sabrent/Kingston drives and super fast with internal Studio storage. Unfortunately, the 512 GB internal Studio storage was running low with nearly 75,000 photo library and my other stuff.

Note: I use Carbon Copy Cloner to periodically backup external SSD's to a WD 14 TB EasyStore!

 

[AZhappyjack]

I have owned a 1 TB SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD for about two years, and it has shown signs of failure. Yes, an SSD--considered to be the most reliable way to store data--is failing. And apparently I am not alone in this, as I've spotted numerous bad reviews around the internet with people complaining of the same thing. Initially, I thought it was an operating system issue, but I've tested it in both my PC and Mac, and it has the same issue. Reformatting is no use--I've tried that maybe four times by now.

Signs of failure include:

• Finder/File Explorer not loading the drive, or freezing when you try to mount or open it.
• Clicking "New Folder" and File Explorer/Finder freezing. Takes ages to actually create the new folder.
• Freezing when opening files.
• Audio/video files either corrupted, don't play at all, or stick in the middle of playback.

Of course, this is not a complete list, but these are the issues I've experienced, personally.

So, unless you want to risk data loss, please don't buy one of these! It's very frustrating for me, because now, not only do I have to buy a new drive (from a different brand, obviously), but also, I didn't know it was going to fail when I bought it! So just putting this out there to people who might be considering purchasing one.

Been using SanDisk Extreme SSDs for several years with no issues... and nary a sign of impending issues. YMMV.

I've also used Samsung T series and they're also good, but again, no issue with the SanDisk drives.

Don't you love it when someone has an issue with something and they feel compelled to shout from the rooftops that we should avoid whatever item that caused their consternation?

 

[jz0309]

I've had mine, the 2 TB version, for over 3 years, it's plugged in 24x7 with no issues.
This is a known problem affecting certain models over a certain time period as others have posted, and, I believe Sandisk has a lifetime warranty, maybe check into that.

 

[rm5]

I ended up getting an internal Crucial SSD, since my Lenovo Legion has a second SSD slot. That should work much better!

 

[rm5]

Got the Crucial SSD in yesterday, and it was SO SATISFYING throwing the old, defective SanDisk in the trash!