Western Digital faces a lawsuit over the specs of some of its hard drives

WD had been caught out in mis-selling some of its spinning hard drives aimed at the network-attached storage (NAS) in the recent past. This company, along with Toshiba and Seagate, were discovered to have made the products in question with spinning disks based on shingled magnetic recording (SMR) rather than perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR).

The latter, also known as conventional magnetic recording (CMR) is often more prized as it is perceived to be superior in terms of write speeds. However, (and possibly more importantly), it may determine the choice of a new drive for a NAS as combining SMR- and CMR-based drives is associated with disruptions in RAID configurations. Therefore, buyers would be advised to check the nature of the MR in question when purchasing such components.

This, then, is why actions such as those of WD resulted in such controversy when this story broke in April 2020. Needless to say, the false advertising involved was also unacceptable in itself. Accordingly, Hattis Law has announced that it has filed a suit against the OEM for what this firm calls its "secret downgrade".

The action, taken in order to address the "harmful and deceptive" effects on WD's customers, is open to potential plantiffs who bought the drives in question. They consist of the following products: