Western Digital is one of the big brands that the world of PCMR is very familiar with, having offered products like HDDs, and in recent years, SSDs. However, in a company restructuring completed last month, the storage maker has officially bode farewell to flash-based storage, with its SSD operations now transferred to SanDisk, another storage maker focusing on flash storage.
Western Digital Bids Farewell To SSDs
Western Digital had a proud history of producing some of the fastest SSDs on the market, like the WD_BLACK SN750 and SN850; it also has a fair share of value-based SSDs serving mainstream market as well. Still, while the branding is no more, the innards of these high-performance SSDs will live on as SanDisk SSDs, so you can still expect the top-tier performance that these models are known for.
So what’s next for WD? Anticipating the huge storage demands that AI will bring, the company has shifted its focus to continue developing HDDs, which still has one unique advantage over the blazing fast SSDs – storage density. In some ways, this is WD returning to its roots, which is a brand once known for its hard drive expertise, just this time it will be exclusively serving enterprise and datacenter customers.
Meanwhile, SanDisk has once again become independent after almost 9 years under WD’s ownership, and all existing products from WD will be sold through SanDisk channels. It may take a few year before the branding transition is complete, so for now you may still see WD products on the market, along with SanDisk ones (which also went through a visual rebrand not too long ago).
Pokdepinion: HDDs making a resurgence in datacenter is certainly interesting development.
