Western Digital Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over Hard Disc Drives

A man from British Columbia says that he and other consumers were duped into buying subpar hard disc drives made by Western Digital Corporation in a class action lawsuit alleging the company used “inferior technology” in its products and did not inform consumers.

Lead plaintiff, Sheldon Irving, claims that Western Digital changed the quality of certain hard disc drives by using different technology that made it impossible for consumers to use the discs based on how the discs were made in the past. Further, the company failed to label the discs made with the inferior technology, making it impossible for consumers to know if what they were buying would work.

According to the complaint, Western Digital, a U.S. company, makes and sells computer hard disc drives across Canada.

“A hard disc drive is a device used to store electronic information magnetically,” explains the hard disc drive class action lawsuit. “The hard disc drive uses a number of spinning platters coated with a magnetic material, each paired with a read/write head on a moving arm that uses an electromagnet to read or write information to the spinning platters. Hard disc drives are categorized by manufacturers into different ‘grades’ or models depending on the workload and type of work they are rated to perform.”

The complaint explains that certain hard drive discs are made so users do not lose data if one disc in their Network Attached Storage (NAS) fails. These are called Redundant Array of Independent Discs (RAID) and they allow damaged discs to be replaced, a benefit to this type of configuration. However, there are certain technologies that are inappropriate for use in this type of configuration, called Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR). The correct technology is called Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR), states the complaint.

“The performance of hard disc drives employing SMR is inferior to hard disc drives that employ CMR in most use case scenarios,” notes the class action lawsuit. “Hard drive discs employing SMR are particularly unsuitable in NAS and other RAID deployments. This was well known to the Defendants at all material times.”

Hard drive discs made using SMR technology are less expensive to make than those that use CMR, states the complaint, further noting that Western Digital began using CMR to manufacture hard drive discs and sell them to Canadians in 2012. However, at some point, Western Digital allegedly began using SMR technology to build its hard drive discs, but did not inform consumers about the change.

“By marketing the Affected WD RED NAS Drives as designed and optimized for usage in NAS devices specifically and RAID arrays generally, the Defendants misled consumers into believing the technology employed in the Affected WD RED NAS Drives was both suitable and superior for the purpose of being configured in a RAID array, whether in a NAS device or generally, when it was neither suitable nor superior for this purpose,” claims the plaintiff. “Having previously established in the marketplace that WD RED NAS Drives equipped with CMR were well-suited to use in NAS devices specifically and RAID arrays generally, and knowing that SMR was inadequate for that purpose, the Defendants’ failure to inform consumers that the Affected WD RED NAS Drives had switched to SMR misled consumers as to a material aspect of the Affected WD RED NAS Drives.”

According to the proposed hard disc drive class action lawsuit, Western Digital did not acknowledge that the affected hard drives were made with inferior technology until April of this year in a blog post on the website. In addition, it began labeling the hard drive discs in a way that differentiated between ones made with SMR and CMR technology.

The plaintiff claims that Western Digital violated Canada’s consumer protection laws by mislabeling and failing to notify consumers of the change, including the Competition Act, Sale of Goods Act, and Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act.

The proposed hard disc drive class action lawsuit seeks to represent those who purchased “affected WD RED NAS Drives in Canada with model numbers WD20EFAX, WD30EFAX, WD40EFAX,” along with a “subclass of persons who purchased Affected WD RED NAS Drives for personal, family or household purposes.”

The plaintiff is seeking damages as well as an injunction against Western Digital.

Have you purchased Western Digital hard disc drives that were made using the inferior technology alleged in this class action lawsuit? Tell us what happened in the comment section below!

The lead plaintiff and proposed Class Members are represented by Anthony A. Vecchio QC, James A. Richards, Saro J. Turner, Sam J. Jaworski, Ryan T. Matheuszik, and Mathew P. Good of Slater Vecchio LLP.

The Western Digital Defective Hard Disc Drives Class Action Lawsuit is Irving v. Western Digital Corporation, et al., Case No. VLC-S-S-205402 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada. 

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