SanDisk 1GB Titanium Cruzer is Better Left in Package

Filed under:Opinion, Tech — posted by Tyler on March 14, 2006 @ 11:41 pm    

Early this year I received a shiny, new SanDisk 1GB Titanium Cruzer USB Flash Drive for use at work. Synonyms for USB Flash Drive include “pen drives”, “chip sticks”, “thumb drives”, “USB drives” and “jump drives”, but in the case of the Titanium Cruzer it’s “defective piece of dung”. Mine worked for about a day and then stopped working.

Ok, no biggy, right? There’s probably a fix out there somewhere and if not then I was the unlucky one and I’ll get a new one. Afterall, they come with a 5 year warranty! (Nothing says stability like a 5 year warranty.) So I go a googling looking for something that will bring my flash drive back to life. Here are just a few of the encouraging comments I found about the SanDisk 1GB Titanium Cruzer:

“flip a coin”, 2006-01-23
“My workplace has been using these for a year or so, and we’ve had about a 50% failure rate within a year of use. One day the little blue light just decides not to illuminate and the key is not recognized by any PC. The things are simply not reliable.”

“Plug & Play?? HARDLY!!”, February 17, 2005
“Pros: NONE….can’t get the thing to be recognized by any PC….Windows XP or 2000. We followed all the troubleshooting guidelines and contacted tech support, but to no avail.
Cons: PC won’t recognize the drive. The PC knows the drive is there, but nothing shows up in Windows Explorer when you want to use the thing. Taking it back!! What a pain!”

“I’ve had 2 that failed”, November 29, 2004
Pros: looks good, fast, neat access to connection
Cons: My first one broke so that the exposed connector would not ‘lock’ open and took 2 hands to insert, my second one is so loose fitting that the connection is rarely established (=not recognized). Don’t recommend this usb at all!

Not reliable at all I bought and own 10 of these things.
5 of them are already death after less than 6 months of use. They were working properly and then for no apparent reason stopped working. Fortunately I had most of my date backed up, but I still lost some valuable info.
The company has changed 2 already and I Hope they replace the remaining 3. Dealing with them takes a looong time.

I guess this is the reason why they have become cheaper, they are just a pile of trash into a nice titanium case. So, avoid these things by all means.

So it is for me as it is with these reviews. I just shipped back my second flash drive today, so we’ll see if third times a charm.

The thing that really set me off today about SanDisk was their trash support. I was using their online request system to add comments to the RMA and report problems, but they never responded which forced the dreaded phone call. So I press the number corresponding to the “Check on RMA Status” option.  I talk to some guy who trys to read my comments from the online system on the fly, but it sounds more like he’s trying to wing it on a palm reading.  He’s also reading comments from the first return and not the second so I try to get him on the right track.  But he doesn’t see the comments relating to the second RMA.  He suddenly decides that my problem is one that Technical Support needs to hear, so he transfers me.

After a long wait I hear, “Thank you for calling SanDisk, my name is Jay.  And before we get started today, let me just say that we have a very bad cold today so your patience with us would be greatly appreciated as we continue this call, OK?”

WHAT THE????  We?  Us?  As in SanDisk has a very bad cold?  Or you and your multiple personalities have a very bad cold?  I said, “Ok.”

He continues, “Ok, so with that in mind, what can we do for you today.”

I explain my problem and he immediately tells me that I shouldn’t have called technical support and that I should have called the RMA people.  That’s when I just about reached through the phone, but luckily for him I was at work so I had to keep my cool.  I explained to him that I was transferred to him and that I was just on the line with the RMA people and that they are the people that transferred me to him!  I couldn’t believe it.

So after some more extreme control of my temper, I finally endured the call and received an email with a prepaid FedEx label to return the second defective Cruzer.  I’ll keep you all informed of the outcome in the comments.  Maybe I’ll get another defective one.  I’m counting on it!

4 comments »

  1. I don’t doubt your experiences with SanDisk products and especially the frustration you’ve had. I think that after your Websearch for other experiences, you’re the one guy who get’s all the SanDisk flash/usb drives that don’t work, and I am the one guy getting all the SanDisk flash/usb drives that do work. I’ve had 6 over the last 4 years.

    As one of the reviewers you quoted said, his company seems to have a 50% failure rate with regards to their SanDisk products.

    Not a single problem and I am VERY abusive to small consumer electronics. 2 x 128Mb, 2 x 256Mb, 1 x 512Mb and my latest, the U3 enabled 1Gb (ultrathin and unobtrusive) micro mini cruzer. Love it.

    Sorry for your grief. Really.

    Finally, if it helps… of all names, Kensington seems to keep coming up and appears to have a reasonable sized/priced/reviewed favorably series of flash/usb drives.

    Good luck with whichever you end up with.

    Sincerely and Godspeed,

    Paul

    Comment by Paul — March 24, 2006 @ 12:09 am

  2. Same problem here, my titanium 512 mb just died on me today — the light flashes on and then turns off. I have had three techs look at it and I’ve spoked with SanDisk about it. I have been very careful with it. Told by a data recovery service (lc-tech.com) there is only a 50% chance they can recover the lost data ($75 for that service). I just read on http://www.techreviewer.com that drives with KI at the end of the serial are defective, and apparently freezing the drive for several hours and immediately plugging it into the USB port will allow you a few seconds to copy your files. I’m going to try this and see what happens.

    Comment by Kat — April 5, 2006 @ 11:04 am

  3. I’ll bet that’s true about the KI on the end of the serial number being defective. The last two that I had to send back both ended in “KI”. The one I received on Monday doesn’t end in KI and it’s working fine…so far. I’m crossing my fingers that this one finally works!!

    Comment by Tyler — April 5, 2006 @ 11:22 am

  4. I found another insightful comment at the Technology section of the New York Times. Here is the comment:

    My 2GB, Titanium drive died after 4 weeks (right I could have received a full refund). I purchased this drive on the very high recommendation of CNET and with the expectation that the drive would be extremely durable and long-lasting. While the exterior is quite sleek and durable, the internal circuitry is “fragile” according to SanDisk.

    I was told by the first SanDisk technical support technician not to plug a Titanium drive into USB ports on any monitor as they do not provide enough energy for the drive and probably lead to the “short-circuit” I experienced. I was told to only plug the drive into USB ports on the PC itself. I did some research into the energy output of my (Gateway) monitor’s USB ports and called SanDisk back. This time I was told not to use the monitor’s USB ports because they provide “too much” energy for the drive; a direct contradiction of what the prior technician had told me. The real kicker was when he added that I should not plug the drive into USB ports on any Dell computers (my PC is a Dell). So, in effect, I was told not to use the drive on any equipment I currently own. When I asked where I could successfully use the drive, they said “any non-Dell PC USB port.”

    I spoke with yet another, very forthright, SanDisk technical support technician, who told me that the Titanium series drives have been found to have “fragile internal circuitry,” especially those with serial numbers ending in ‘KI’, which mine did. He told me that the Titanium drives “have a durable exterior but very fragile internal circuitry.” I was also told that I use the Titanium drives “at my own risk” and that I “should not store any valuable information on the drive.” WHAT! Given this knowledge, I asked that they replace the Titanium drive I sent in with a different drive. Each support technician told me that the micro and mini drives were much more reliable than the Titanium drives.

    I selected as my replacement a 2GB, Black, Micro, retractable drive. Only later was I informed that this replacement drive is not yet being distributed, but that it would be distributed “sometime in April 2006.” So I wait.

    Moral of the story: the Titanium drives are worthless and SanDisk technical support are not much better.

    Comment by Tyler — April 30, 2006 @ 11:06 am

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