Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
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Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#2We only have 4 manufacturers of SSD drives who also making their own chips: Intel, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Here’s the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manu...
I tend to buy Samsung and Intel, both working well in my devices.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#3Products that don't behave the same should really have different part numbers. In this example, perhaps they could call them SN550 and SN550A (B, C, etc.) or even SN551, SN552, ... if the majority of the design hasn't changed.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#4This happens with products all the time. Strictly "shrink-flation" of consumer goods is the same thing.
One industrial vendor we once partnered with took a product P that had speed S and accuracy A, discontinued that product and replaced with product P1 which was speed S/10 and accuracy A paired with product P2 which was speed S and accuracy A/10. The original P products were precious if you could find them.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#5I'm super happy with my SN850 except those pesky leds that you cant turn off from Linux.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#6Why is this not fraud?
If you as a company source a device for reviewers and then change the specs in a way that you do not communicate, that is intent to defraud.
If you bought a corvette because all the car reviews said it went 0-60 in 5 seconds, and then you buy one and it takes 10 seconds to do the same thing, you’d have a pretty good argument - especially if everyone else experienced your same situation.
I’d be surprised if a class action suit or FTC investigation doesn’t happens within the next year.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#7This happens with products all the time. Strictly "shrink-flation" of consumer goods is the same thing. One industrial vendor we once partnered with took a product P that had speed S and accuracy A, discontinued that product and replaced with product P1 which was speed S/10 and accuracy A paired with product P2 which was speed S and accuracy A/10. The original P products were precious if you could find them.
Silent change in this concept means there is no way to identify P2 from P, and both are sold under the same product name, product code, product specifications, and same product reviews. The later is the key aspect as selling products with the intent to trick the consumer is a defining aspect of fraud when done intentionally for profit purpose.
While shrinkflation often also intend to trick the consumer, the details are usually defined. The packet weight or volume number is changed, the weight cost is change (a list requirement for many products where I live), the number of items has changed. With silent changes however there is no such information available and the consumer just will have to hope that their P is not P2.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#8Why is this not fraud? If you as a company source a device for reviewers and then change the specs in a way that you do not communicate, that is intent to defraud. If you bought a corvette because all the car reviews said it went 0-60 in 5 seconds, and then you buy one and it takes 10 seconds to do the same thing, you’d have a pretty good argument - especially if everyone else experienced your same situation. I’d be…
They seem emboldened by the event where they silently introduced SMR into NAS drives. That is, they didn't suffer any real consequences there, so now it's a free-for-all.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#9Why is this not fraud? If you as a company source a device for reviewers and then change the specs in a way that you do not communicate, that is intent to defraud. If you bought a corvette because all the car reviews said it went 0-60 in 5 seconds, and then you buy one and it takes 10 seconds to do the same thing, you’d have a pretty good argument - especially if everyone else experienced your same situation. I’d be…
One might argue that the changes are marginal and most users won't be affected by them. This change hurts write throughput for large write workloads, but these workloads are rare anyway.
Re: Silent changes to Western Digital’s budget SSD may lower speeds by up to 50%
#10We only have 4 manufacturers of SSD drives who also making their own chips: Intel, Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix. Here’s the table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solid-state_drive_manu... I tend to buy Samsung and Intel, both working well in my devices.
I thought Western Digital had vertically integrated their SSDs after the purchase of SanDisk?
According to that Wikipedia list, Western Digital does manufacture their own flash, through a joint venture with Kioxia.