Western Digital controversies
Controversies tied to this brand in public sources. A listing is not a finding of fault.
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2020
Plaintiffs update lawsuit seeking to restrict Western Digital’s SMR advertising for NAS drives
Lawsuit filed
Plaintiffs suing Western Digital updated their filing with additional technical information and plaintiffs, seeking a ruling that the company cannot advertise SMR drives as suitable for NAS applications. The plaintiffs allege false advertising; the article says they do not allege the drives are defective.
Stated objective. The plaintiffs ask that Western Digital be forbidden from advertising SMR drives as being suitable for NAS applications.
Source excerpt
Instead, the plaintiffs ask that Western Digital be forbidden from advertising SMR drives as being suitable for NAS applications.
The plaintiffs in the case are not alleging that the SMR drives are defective, but that Western Digital has engaged in false advertising by selling these products for uses they cannot materially fulfill.
The law firm suing the company has updated its filing to add significant technical data and is not requesting a huge payday for itself.
2007
Green Power head-parking criticism
Users and technical communities criticized the operating behavior of certain Green Power drives, particularly frequent head unloading that could rapidly increase load-cycle counts under some Linux workloads. The controversy concerned product behavior and specification interpretation rather than a formally established corporate scandal.
2000
Expert drive recall
Some Western Digital Expert hard drives were recalled after defective motor-driver chips caused reliability problems. The issue followed the company’s IBM-supported effort to restore its drive technology and market reputation.