Western Digital^® Class Action Lawsuit – Canada

Class action lawsuit alleges WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording were marketed and sold for use in NAS devices and RAID arrays despite being inappropriate and unsuitable for that purpose

What is this class action lawsuit about?

Slater Vecchio LLP has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Western Digital Corporation and Western Digital Canada Corporation on behalf of Canadians who purchased WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording.

The lawsuit alleges that Western Digital Corporation and Western Digital Canada Corporation did not inform consumers when they switched certain models of WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives from Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) to Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) despite hard disc drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording being inappropriate and unsuitable for use in NAS devices and RAID arrays.

A copy of the WD RED™ NAS Hard Drive class action lawsuit is available here.

What is Shingled Magnetic Recording?

Shingled Magnetic Recording is a method for laying down magnetic data on the spinning platters of a hard disc drive in overlapping tracks, which increases the density of the data and lowers the cost of manufacturing the hard disc drive.

Unlike Conventional Magnetic Recording, which lays down magnetic data on the spinning platters of a hard disc drive in non-overlapping tracks, there is a significant penalty to random write performance in hard disc drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording.

How does Shingled Magnetic Recording affect NAS devices and RAID deployments?

A NAS device or RAID array is designed to duplicate data across several hard disc drives to provide a redundant copy of the data in case a single hard disc drive fails. A user can then replace a failed hard disc drive with a new one, and the NAS device or RAID array can enter a “rebuilding mode” to ensure that the data is duplicated and protected.

The poor random write performance of hard disc drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording can negatively impact the performance of a NAS device or RAID array generally.

When a user adds or replaces a hard disc drive in a NAS device or a RAID array with a new hard disc drive employing Shingled Magnetic Recording, the rebuilding process may be significantly increased which increases the risk of permanent data loss.

A NAS device or RAID array may refuse to rebuild entirely when a user adds a new hard disc drive or replaces an existing hard disc drive with a hard disc drive employing Shingled Magnetic Recording.

Hard disc drives employing Shingled Magnetic Recording may be rejected or “dropped” by a NAS device or RAID array.

Who is affected?

Western Digital Corporation and Western Digital Canada Corporation marketed WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives for use in NAS devices and RAID arrays, but changed the technology being used in these hard disc drives from Shingled Magnetic Recording to Conventional Magnetic Recording without informing consumers of the switch.

Western Digital Corporation and Western Digital Canada Corporation have since communicated that affected WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives include model numbers WD20EFAX, WD30EFAX, WD40EFAX, and WD60EFAX.

If you are a Canadian who has purchased WD RED™ NAS Hard Drives with model numbers WD20EFAX, WD30EFAX, WD40EFAX, and WD60EFAX you may have a claim for compensation through the WD RED™ NAS Hard Drive class action lawsuit, whether or not you have experienced permanent data loss.