WD (Nasdaq: WDC) today announced the re-launch of its G-DRIVE brand as the unified identity for its content creator and creative professional external storage product portfolio. The brand consolidation brings together high-capacity, high-performance storage solutions under a single name brand - G-DRIVE - known for its quality, performance, and reliability.

The G-DRIVE brand, also represented by the iconic "G" logo, will replace Sandisk Professional branding across WD's creator storage lineup, including desktop drives, portable drives and multi-bay RAID systems purpose-built for the creative community's most demanding workflows: high-resolution photography, video production, graphic design, and audio engineering. Supporting individuals, businesses and production studios, G-DRIVE solutions support the full creative lifecycle, from on-set capture and real-time editing to backup and post-production. Products currently branded as Sandisk Professional will transition to the G-DRIVE brand by the end of this month.

Today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2026), Sandisk announced Sandisk Optimus as the new name for its renowned internal SSD lineup for gamers, creators, and professionals. The new branding for this family of products reflects a focus on performance leadership, engineering excellence, and a heritage of trust in flash memory. The powerful collection of Sandisk Optimus internal storage solutions, encompasses three product lines: Sandisk Optimus, Sandisk Optimus GX, and Sandisk Optimus GX PRO.

Featuring a striking new packaging and product design inspired by the company's innovation and iconic branding, the introduction of Sandisk Optimus creates room for future growth as the company expands its offerings to support the needs of gamers, creators, and professionals. The new design is inspired by the company's pioneering brand heritage and relentless focus on delivering innovation that delights end users. While the overall look and feel of the Sandisk Optimus brand is boldly different, its product portfolio carries forward Sandisk's long-standing reputation for superior quality and reliability, characteristics that have shaped the company's longstanding legacy of flash innovation.

Western Digital has confirmed it is investigating potential problems with some of its older SMR-based hard drives, following reports from multiple data recovery firms about unusually high failure rates. The affected models include 2 TB, 3 TB, 4 TB, and 6 TB WD Blue and Red drives (model numbers WD*0EZAZ, WD*0EDAZ, and WD*0EFAX) released around 2020, products that previously landed the company in a class-action lawsuit over undisclosed use of SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) technology. Tom's Hardware reports that Western Digital said in a statement to Heise Online that it takes the findings seriously and that its engineering teams have launched an internal review.

According to 030 Datenrettung Berlin GmbH, which first published the failure analysis, the issue could have its origins in design-level limitations of SMR technology in lower-capacity consumer drives. SMR increases areal density by overlapping data tracks allowing up to 25% more capacity per platter. However, rewriting data can require adjacent tracks to be rewritten as well, introducing latency and potential instability. These shortcomings have long made SMR unsuitable for certain workloads such as RAID or ZFS arrays. Western Digital's earlier decision not to disclose SMR use in these drives led to a $2.7 million lawsuit settlement in 2021. Now, data recovery labs warn that the same models could suffer physical damage and data loss over time. Users with WD Blue or Red drives in the 2-6 TB range from 2020 onward are advised to check their hardware, as early failure symptoms may include unusual clicking or grinding noises from the platters.

Western Digital is ready with the WD Blue SN5100, the successor to the WD Blue SN5000 that the company launched in June 2024. While the SN5000 offered sequential speeds of up to 5.5 GB/s reads and up to 5 GB/s writes for the top 4 TB model; the SN5100 steps up performance, offering up to 6.6 GB/s of sequential reads for even the entry level 500 GB model. For context, the SN5000 only offers up to 5 GB/s sequential reads and up to 4 GB/s sequential writes for its 500 GB model. The drive features an M.2 NVMe Gen 4 x4 interface. The WD Blue SN5100 also sees Western Digital more closely integrate the SanDisk branding with its client-segment SSDs. The main Western Digital brand makes way for SanDisk, while the brand extension WD Blue is retained.

In today's world demand for visual brilliance and digital content creation is skyrocketing, paving the way for more advanced technologies that support the production and consumption of rich content. For consumers, students, and professionals, fast, reliable tools are a must-have to keep their imaginations flowing. Building upon its award-winning SSD portfolio, Western Digital released the WD Blue SN580 NVMe solid state drive (SSD). The new, NVMe PCIe Gen 4.0 internal flash drive is purpose-built for the creative enthusiast community and professionals to use when upgrading current PCs or elevating a custom build.

"As creator workflows become more robust and complex with heavy applications and large multimedia assets like 4K video, it's easy to become frustrated with long load times," said Eric Spanneut, vice president of client and enterprise SSDs for Western Digital. "The new WD Blue SN580 NVMe SSD boosts productivity, so professionals and entrepreneurial creators can focus on bringing their imaginations to life without having to wait long for files to transfer or programs to load."

[Editor's note: Our in-depth review of the SN580 is now live]