Sandisk Launches WD_BLACK SN8100 PCIe Gen 5.0 NVMe SSD

[phints]

SN8100... very nice. Some competition for the insanely expensive 9100 Pro.

 

[AGlezB]

I still consider them the same company until further clarification. By "them", I mean the entire Toshiba Memory + Kioxia + Sandisk + Western Digital blob.

Another detail I noticed: Sandisk BiCS8 TLC 3D CBA NAND is mentioned in the press release. Until now, flash chips were either Toshiba or Kioxia branded.

Your comment made me realize there might be a direct relation between the emphasis they put on fixing their branding and the focus they have on server vs retail markets, because branding is a lot less relevant in the server market where buying decisions are usually in the hands of well informed engineers that will look into the particulars of the hardware instead of just looking at the brand.

 

[Wirko]

Your comment made me realize there might be a direct relation between the emphasis they put on fixing their branding and the focus they have on server vs retail markets, because branding is a lot less relevant in the server market where buying decisions are usually in the hands of well informed engineers that will look into the particulars of the hardware instead of just looking at the brand.

Less relevant but there's still value in the brand. Many companies separate the brands, so that server products are not associated too closely with consumer stuff. For example, Crucial - Micron, Asrock - Asrock Rack, Gigabyte - Giga Computing. That last one is awfully inconsistent, they're still learning what brand means.
In this case, Sandisk is obviously meant for retail products, and Kioxia will be for servers.

 

[AGlezB]

Less relevant but there's still value in the brand. Many companies separate the brands, so that server products are not associated too closely with consumer stuff. For example, Crucial - Micron, Asrock - Asrock Rack, Gigabyte - Giga Computing. That last one is awfully inconsistent, they're still learning what brand means.
In this case, Sandisk is obviously meant for retail products, and Kioxia will be for servers.

Agreed but I was thinking more along the lines of how much effort and cost is invested into making the branding (not the brand) more appealing to buyers. For instance, you can get a label any simpler than this:

There is no point in investing a single cent more into making the label nicer for a disk that'll go into a datacenter storage server, never to be seen again until it's time to replace it, likely years later.

Thing is, from time to time I have to do some consulting for our clients on what hardware to buy and I have never ever looked at the label. I always base my recommendations on specs/price/volume and do the exact same thing when buying hardware for myself or recommending it to family and friends, which is probably a huge bindspot for me because I know for a fact some people prefer bling over performance.