Western Digital exits SSD business

Western Digital's move has been a long time in the making and was only finalized last week when the SSD division was completely transferred to SanDisk, allowing Western Digital to focus on traditional hard drive (HDD) technology.

There will be no more SSDs from the Western Digital brand

The split marks a major turning point for Western Digital as it competes with major rivals like Samsung and Crucial as the company splits both its SSD and HDD businesses.

For the PC gaming community, which has increasingly embraced SSDs for their superior speed and performance, this is a bittersweet moment. Western Digital has produced many popular SSDs, not the least of which is the WD Black SN850X, which is widely considered the best SSD for gaming. The WD_Black design has become iconic in the industry, and its future absence could mark the end of an era.

Western Digital is still alive in the SSD market, but in a different way

However, this restructuring does not mean that Western Digital will stop making SSDs. In fact, SanDisk will take over the responsibility of manufacturing and selling SSDs. This restructuring was set by Western Digital in October 2023, allowing the company to be ready for the transition. As a result, SSD production will not be significantly disrupted. Western Digital uses Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) manufacturing facilities to produce NAND, and this arrangement could continue under SanDisk. SanDisk could also partner with other manufacturers such as Samsung to meet production needs.

With Western Digital's exit, it will be interesting to see what branding SanDisk will use with its SSDs, as replacing WD with SD could cause confusion with the SD cards used in cameras and handheld devices.

As for Western Digital's direction for HDDs, the company's CEO Irving Tan said that in the immediate future, the company will focus on HAMR technology to be ready to meet the growing demand for storage for big data, such as artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/western-digital-roi-bo-mang-kinh-doanh-ssd-185250307180029068.htm