SanDisk Says Goodbye To WD Blue and Black SSDs, Hello To New 'Optimus' Drives (arstechnica.com) 30
SanDisk is retiring the WD Blue and WD Black SSD brands and replacing them with a new "Optimus" line that carries the same model numbers as its predecessors. The move follows Western Digital's late-2023 decision to split into two companies -- one retaining the WD name for hard drives sold to NAS and data center customers, the other reviving SanDisk for solid-state storage. That separation effectively unwound WD's $19 billion acquisition of SanDisk a decade earlier.
Under the new structure, the entry-level WD Blue SN5100 becomes the SanDisk Optimus 5100, mid-tier WD Black drives shift to Optimus GX, and high-end WD Black SSDs become Optimus GX Pro. The Optimus 5100 uses slower quad-level cell flash, the GX 7100 steps up to triple-level cell memory, and the GX Pro 8100 adds a PCIe 5.0 interface and dedicated DRAM cache. SanDisk offered no timeline for its WD Green and WD Red drives. The rebranding arrives as SSD prices climb on demand from AI data centers -- volatility that prompted Micron last month to discontinue its Crucial-branded consumer drives and RAM.
Under the new structure, the entry-level WD Blue SN5100 becomes the SanDisk Optimus 5100, mid-tier WD Black drives shift to Optimus GX, and high-end WD Black SSDs become Optimus GX Pro. The Optimus 5100 uses slower quad-level cell flash, the GX 7100 steps up to triple-level cell memory, and the GX Pro 8100 adds a PCIe 5.0 interface and dedicated DRAM cache. SanDisk offered no timeline for its WD Green and WD Red drives. The rebranding arrives as SSD prices climb on demand from AI data centers -- volatility that prompted Micron last month to discontinue its Crucial-branded consumer drives and RAM.
counterfeiters ruined SanDisk for me (Score:4, Informative)
I purchased a counterfeit SanDisk product at a retailer. It came in sealed retail packaging with seemingly everything correct, at a retail price. It failed on me quickly. SanDisk informed me that I had a counterfeit product, that was missing some hot-stamps from manufacturing. I had to threaten to sue the retailer to get a refund. After that I decided that I would never buy a SanDisk product again. Not SanDisk's fault but I can't trust what I'm getting.
Good luck with those SanDisk products, you never know until you open it up an inspect the chips inside.
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Which retailer was it, so that others can avoid it too.
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Looks inside the product. If the chips are missing part numbers and have a dragon instead, then you have a bad one.
Lots of questions, no answers. How does that happen? Someone bought the real one a returned a fake one? Supply chain issues? Without being able to answer any questions the only option is to avoid SanDisk. There are good alternatives. I'm not interested in verifying authenticity.
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You don't know if the issue is connected to Sandisk or to your retailer. If you're strict with risk, you should avoid both from now on. On my side I'll consider buying memory products from the official brand website from now on (e.g. sandisk.com and equivalent). It removes a number of possible scenarios.
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Yeah, I don't buy solid state storage from that retailer either, but this article isn't about them.
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Re:counterfeiters made a fool of me (Score:1)
TL:DR;
You bought a counterfeit product from a sketchy source. It broke and you reached out to the legitimate company for warranty help. They informed you that you got a counterfeit product so you decided to never buy from the legitimate company again.
Brilliant.
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"Someone sold me something that wasn't Sandisk, so I decided to arbitrarily punish SanDisk for their popularity."
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That happens with *literally every company* in the storage industry. Literally every single one has examples of counterfeit products somewhere in the supply chain. Simply not buying Sandisk doesn't make you safe it makes you ignorant.
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My SSDs are all Crucial because it is basically direct from the manufacturer, now Micron is dropping it's Crucial brand altogether so this sucks.
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What if I told you it was from Best Buy?
Sandisk and PW protection... (Score:2)
One thing I found useful with external SSDs by Sandisk was the password protection, in addition to using BitLocker, FileVault, VeraCrypt, LUKS, etc. The password protection would stop some casual person who got possession of the drive, and likely they would just click "erase disk" after some random guesses at the passphrase, ensuring the data was gone with a new AES key. (I keep backups, so I rather have the data gone than in the wrong hands.)
Tuns out that the app that was used for that wasn't just obsole
Re:Sandisk and PW protection... (Score:4, Interesting)
All of those proprietary apps died off because there is a standard now. Self-encrypting drives (SEDs) are commonplace, cheaper, and more compatible than ever.
It's easier, too. Just buy a TCG Opal compliant drive. Not every consumer brand offers one, but there is a decent range of consumer-class options.
For ease of use, you'd want your mainboard firmware to support it. In that case, the system can handle pre-boot authentication automatically, so daily usage is seamless.
For security, you'd rely on the PBA partition to unlock the device, which means no one can access the disk without the passkey. On non-Opal mainboards, the PBA partition is the only way you can boot from a SED.
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Or just use BitLocker software mode or LUKS and skip hardware/firmware level implementation. Then you have a much more well vetted software stack instead of trusting anything about the hardware vendor's implementation, which have historically been shown to have various weaknesses.
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Agreed. I use LUKS, or a solid software layer, but it would be nice if the hardware layer worked, just as a way deter brute force attempts and cudgel whomever has the drive to erase it, ensuring the data is out of their hands.
Oh come on (Score:5, Funny)
How could you NOT have a tier labeled "Optimus Prime"?
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The name Optimus has been sullied by Michael Bay movies and Musk's shitty robots. Strange choice.
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I dunno, seems fitting. Perhaps they'll find a place in slow, shitty, mostly-remote-operated robots?
Used to do tech support for SanDisk (Score:2)
Back in the early 'aughts when flash drives were brand new on the scene, still had to direct people to how to install drivers for Windows 98 that's how new these were, 32mb to 256mb. The Cruzer Mini, those fuckers failed all. the. time.
So much so the guy next to me made a little song
Cruzer Mini
That shit is whack
Cruzer Mini
Take that shit back
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I have one Sandisk Cruzer 2 GB that's got to be from 2009 or 2012. It's survived regular use and rough conditions this whole time. Still going strong... I do recall many of them that broke, though.
Dumb (Score:3)
The Western Digital color branding was nice. This gets rid of the simple color performance labeling.
=(
still no (Score:2)
WD SSDs offered poorer warranty (byte write lifetime) than Samsung in the same price class. So, I don't care if they change the name to Sandisk Pessimus.