During Black Friday week 2022, I bought from Amazon several SanDisk SSDs—2TB Extreme Pro. The discounted selling price is even lower this year. But I have decided to retire all. My experience with the drives is nothing short of satisfaction. But throughout 2023, I have read numerous blogs, forum posts, and news stories about SanDisk drive failures resulting in loss of data. Every time I connect Extreme Pro to my laptop, I am nagged by feeling of playing Russian Roulette.
Consider this chilling headline from PetaPixel, in August: “SanDisk Portable SSDs Are Failing So Frequently, We Can No Longer Recommend Them“. Or this one from The Verge: “We just lost 3TB of data on a SanDisk Extreme SSD“, with dek “My colleague Vjeran is furious”. The big bombshell, just 10 days ago: “SanDisk Extreme Pro Failures Result From Design and Manufacturing Flaws, Says Data Recovery Firm” (Tom’s Hardware re-reporting from German Site FutureZone).
I patiently, and nervously, waited for another holiday sales cycle and possible opportunity to affordably replace the SSDs with those from another manufacturer. Samsung’s new T9 is similarly USB 3.2 2×2 and drop resilient, but not dust and water resistant like Extreme Pro. Price from Amazon or direct is Black Friday excellent; I ordered two T9s from Samsung on November 18, and they arrived today. The nervous data transfer will be one of my projects for the days, and even weeks, ahead.
I used Leica Q2 to quickly capture the Featured Image this evening. Vitals: f/2.8, ISO 320, 1/15 sec, 28mm; 8:53 p.m. PST. Quick criticism: I have done nothing more with the T9 than remove it from the box for this shot—and look at the dust already collected on the rubber sheath. Oh my.