Western Digital Sued Over Alleged Inferior Hard Drive Technology

Western Digital Corp. surreptitiously switched to inferior technology in certain hard drives while keeping prices the same, according to a proposed class suit by a New Yorker who lost data when his hard drives failed.

Western Digital didn’t disclose that the hard drives use Shingle Magnetic Recording technology, which results in slower performance and inferior stability than higher-performance Conventional Magnetic Recording technology, Oscar Brown alleges.

Although the company previously utilized CMR technology in its hard drives, it downgraded to SMR technology over the last several years without disclosing this change to consumers, the suit in the U.S. District Court for ...