There is absolutely nothing to say that the author didn’t have it backed up. He still lost 3TB of files from a new drive which was a replacement sent by the company, with a known fault supposedly fixed.

“Herp derp he should have backed up” is not the takeaway here”

Still, if SSDs fail repeatedly, something’s not right. That’s the point of the article

So because backups exist, everyone should be okay with buying bad hardware?

I know you’re not actually saying that, but countering “this is a known firmware fault” with a reminder that backups should be done sure makes it look like you’re saying that. There’s still value in making sure consumers’ money goes to products that last.