Western Digital made a significant change to the way it sells its products, which sees the SanDisk brand return to prominence. The company spun out SanDisk.com as a separate website, with product information, support, and in select regions, online retail, of all its NAND flash-based products, including SSDs, memory cards, USB flash drives, etc. Meanwhile, its main website, WesternDigital.com, now only lists out non-flash products, such as hard disk drives (HDDs), NAS, and other enterprise hardware such as rackmount DAS or NAS.

The decision splits WD's portfolio vertically, regardless of market. SanDisk now includes both client- and enterprise flash-based products, while Western Digital covers both enterprise, SMB, and client HDDs, including HDDs with gamer centric WD_Black branding. Meanwhile, the SanDisk website includes all of Western Digital's flash-based products, including SSDs and portable SSDs that retain the Western Digital brand. So, the easiest way to understand this split would be: if it has disks that spin, find them on WesternDigital.com, and if it's solid-state, find it on SanDisk.com.

Western Digital announced it has expanded its portfolio of Nintendo-licensed SanDisk microSD cards with the launch of new cards inspired by Pokémon, one of the world's most successful entertainment franchises. In partnership with The Pokémon Company International and Nintendo, Western Digital is introducing the SanDisk Pokémon Snorlax microSD Card (1 TB), the SanDisk Pokémon Gengar microSD Card (512 GB) and the SanDisk Pokémon Pikachu microSD Card (256 GB).

Built for the popular Nintendo Switch Systems, the SanDisk Pokémon microSD cards allow users to add games to their libraries instead of doing the extra work of downloading, deleting and re-downloading games to make more space. The unique design of the SanDisk Pokémon card series captures the likeness of iconic Pokémon first discovered in the Kanto region of the Pokémon world, making these cards a must have for fans across the globe.

Western Digital, a leader in Flash and HDD data storage, is unveiling groundbreaking solutions and technology demonstrations at FMS 2024 that raise the bar for performance, capacity and efficiency for transformative AI Data Cycle workloads. These innovations cater to diverse market segments from hyperscale cloud to automotive and consumer storage. Attendees will also gain insights from a keynote address by Rob Soderbery, executive vice president and general manager of Western Digital's Flash Business Unit, on Tuesday at 3 PM. During the keynote, Soderbery will delve into the strategic advancements propelling the future of NAND, AI and data storage from the data center to the edge.

"As AI technologies advance and become increasingly embedded in the world around us, the demand for storage will only continue to grow," said Soderbery. "Western Digital's product and technology roadmaps are strategically aligned to ensure our customers have the most advanced, reliable solutions to stay ahead in the rapidly changing AI landscape. This holistic approach ensures that our customers receive the most power-efficient, high-performing and high-capacity solutions tailored to their specific needs. We are excited to showcase our full range of products and new technologies and demonstrate how they can transform AI now and into the future."

Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC) today reported fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 financial results. "Our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 results are reflective of the diverse and innovative portfolio we have developed in alignment with our strategic roadmap. Together, with the structural changes we have made to strengthen our operations, we are benefitting from the broad recovery we are seeing across our end markets and structurally improving through-cycle profitability for both Flash and HDD," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO.

"The emergence of the AI Data Cycle marks a transformational period within our industry that will drive fundamental shifts across our end markets, increasing the need for storage and creating new demand drivers. As we look ahead, we are confident in our ability to leverage our technology leadership position to capitalize on these exciting growth opportunities and deliver value for our customers," continued David Goeckeler.

Western Digital stealthily introduced a spacious 8 TB variant of its performance WD Black SN850X M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD. The drive debuted in 2022 and had topped off at 4 TB. The new 8 TB variant is priced at $849 for the bare drive (without heatsink, model number WDS800T2X0E), and $899 with the PS5-friendly heatsink (model: WDS800T2XHE). The drive combines an in-house controller by Western Digital, with KIOXIA-sourced 3D TLC NAND flash. We're not sure if it's using the same 112-layer BiCS5 that the 4 TB variant does.

Western Digital claims performance figures of up to 7200 MB/s sequential reads, up to 6600 MB/s sequential writes, and up to 1.2 million IOPS 4K random reads/writes. The read speed is a touch lesser than the 7300 MB/s max sequential reads of the 4 TB variant. The write endurance of the 8 TB variant is rated at an impressive 4,800 TBW. Built in the M.2-2280 form-factor the drive takes advantage of the PCI-Express 4.0 x4 interface. Western Digital is backing these drives with 5-year warranties.

Kioxia presented a technology roadmap at the IWM 2024 conference in Seoul, projecting the development of 1,000-layer 3D NAND by 2027. This ambitious goal is based on extrapolating past trends, which saw NAND layers increase from 24 in 2014 to 238 in 2022. Kioxia's plan involves not only increasing layer count but also shrinking cell size and increasing bit levels from TLC (3 bits per cell) to QLC (4 bits per cell), and possibly even to PLC (5 bits per cell).

However, these advancements come with significant technical challenges. Etching the vertical connecting holes (through-silicon vias or TSVs) are harder to achieve and can lead to higher channel resistance. Kioxia proposes solutions such as using single-crystalline silicon instead of polysilicon and switching from tungsten to molybdenum to reduce resistance. They also suggest moving to multi-lane wordlines to reduce the die area needed for electrical connectivity.

Western Digital has released a new budget friendly SSD that got a serious jump in model number, since the company decided to call it the SN5000. Its predecessor is the SN580 launched just under a year ago and price wise, it's the better option of the two. The new SN5000 uses the same BiCS 5 TLC NAND as the SN580 on the 500 GB to the 2 TB SKU, but according to Anandtech, the 4 TB uses BiCS 6 QLC NAND. The SN5000 is still a PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe drive, but the overall performance has been significantly improved. If we use the 1 TB SKU for comparison, then the sequential read speeds have gone up by 1 GB/s from 4150 MB/s to 5150 MB/s. The sequential write speed is up 750 MB/s from 4150 MB/s to 4900 MB/s.

As for random performance, the read IOPS are up from 600K IOPS to 730K IOPS and the write IOPS are up slightly from 750K to 770K. The 4 TB QLC SKU is said to deliver even better performance with the exception of the random read IOPS. The 1 TB SKU is said to have a write endurance of 600 TBW, but the 4 TB SKU only offers 1200 TBW. That's 0.33 drive writes per day (DWPD) for the 1 TB SKU vs. 0.16 DWPD for the 4 TB SKU, showing the weakness of the QLC NAND. A new feature for the SN5000 series compared to previous WD Blue NVMe drives is support for TGC Pyrite 2.01 encryption. The WD SN5000-series starts at US$70 for the 500 GB model, going up to US$80 for 1 TB, US$140 for 2 TB and topping out at US$280 for the 4 TB model. WD only seems to have the 500 GB model in stock, with all the others being available in 3-4 weeks time. All SKUs come with a five year warranty.

Fueling the next wave of AI innovation, Western Digital today introduced a six-stage AI Data Cycle framework that defines the optimal storage mix for AI workloads at scale. This framework will help customers plan and develop advanced storage infrastructures to maximize their AI investments, improve efficiency, and reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of their AI workflows. AI models operate in a continuous loop of data consumption and generation - processing text, images, audio and video among other data types while simultaneously producing new unique data. As AI technologies become more advanced, data storage systems must deliver the capacity and performance to support the computational loads and speeds required for large, sophisticated models while managing immense volumes of data. Western Digital has strategically aligned its Flash and HDD product and technology roadmaps to the storage requirements of each critical stage of the cycle, and today introduced a new industry-leading, high-performance PCIe Gen 5 SSD to support AI training and inference; a high-capacity 64 TB SSD for fast AI data lakes; and the world's highest capacity ePMR, UltraSMR 32 TB HDD for cost-effective storage at scale.

"There's no doubt that Generative AI is the next transformational technology, and storage is a critical enabler. The implications for storage are expected to be significant as the role of storage, and access to data, influences the speed, efficiency and accuracy of AI Models, especially as larger and higher-quality data sets become more prevalent," said Ed Burns, Research Director at IDC. "As a leader in Flash and HDD, Western Digital has an opportunity to benefit in this growing AI landscape with its strong market position and broad portfolio, which meets a variety of needs within the different AI data cycle stages."

TrendForce reports that a reduction in supplier production has led to unmet demand for high-capacity orders since 4Q23. Combined with procurement strategies aimed at building low-cost inventory, this has driven orders and significantly boosted enterprise SSD revenue, which reached US$3.758 billion in 1Q24—a staggering 62.9% QoQ increase.

TrendForce further highlights that demand for high-capacity, driven by AI servers, has surged. North American clients increasingly adopt high-capacity QLC SSDs to replace HDDs, leading to over 20% growth in Q2 enterprise SSD bit procurement. This has also driven up Q2 enterprise SSD contract prices by more than 20%, with revenue expected to grow by another 20%.

TrendForce reports that adoption of enterprise SSDs by AI servers began in February, which subsequently led to large orders. Additionally, PC and smartphone customers have been increasing their inventory levels to manage rising prices. This trend drove up NAND Flash prices and shipment levels in 1Q24 and boosted quarterly revenue by 28.1% to US$14.71 billion.

There were significant changes in market rankings this quarter, with Micron overtaking Western Digital to claim the fourth spot. Micron benefited from slightly lower prices and shipments than its competitors in 4Q23, resulting in a 51.2% QoQ revenue growth to $1.72 billion in 1Q24—the highest among its peers.

With the explosion of digital content, people need bigger and more robust solutions to help access and preserve it all. Western Digital today is introducing a portable HDD expansion across its WD, WD_BLACK and SanDisk Professional product lineups, boasting the world's highest storage capacity in a 2.5" portable HDD. The WD My Passport portable HDD line, WD_BLACK P10 Game Drive and SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE ArmorATD will all now be available in 6 TB capacities.

"Expanding our portfolio with the world's first 2.5" 6 TB portable hard drive is an incredible technological achievement, and it enables us to continue pushing the boundaries of what's possible," said Nitin Kachhwaha, Director of Product Management at Western Digital. "Offering up to 6 TB in such a small form factor and accessible price point gives everyone - from students, gamers, professional videographers, and more—greater flexibility to create and keep even more of their essential content in one portable drive."

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) has expanded its SanDisk portfolio with the new 8 TB SanDisk Desk Drive, its highest capacity yet on an external desktop solid state drive (SSD). Featuring the speed and reliability of an SSD, this new class of drives gives content creators and business professionals an easy way to back up and access their high-resolution photos, videos and files quickly in a single, convenient location. From photo and video pros to tech enthusiasts, there are a growing number of digital creators generating massive amounts of content who need flexible high-capacity storage solutions to do more, faster.

"As digital content creation continues to soar, there is an increasing need for high-performing and high-capacity storage solutions to help manage and preserve it. Expanding our SSD portfolio is the first step in offering creators backup solutions that deliver the speed and flexibility they need to unlock their creativity," says Susan Park, Vice President, Consumer Solutions, Western Digital. "By next year, we expect to double the capacity of the SanDisk Desk Drive from 8 TB to 16 TB on a single desktop SSD."

Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal third quarter 2024 financial results.

"As evidenced by our excellent third quarter results, Western Digital continues improving through-cycle profitability and dampening business cycles by leveraging our strategy of developing a diversified portfolio of industry-leading products across a broad range of end markets," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "We are in the early innings of unlocking the full potential of this company, and as industry supply and demand dynamics continue to improve, we will remain disciplined around our capital spending and focused on driving innovation and efficiency across our businesses. We are confident in our strategy and the actions we have taken to-date, which successfully position us to capitalize on the promising growth prospects that lie ahead."

At the NAB Show 2024, in Las Vegas, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) is unveiling an exciting lineup of technologies and new storage solutions designed for today's and tomorrow's complex media and entertainment (M&E) workflows. Western Digital continues to focus on creating what's next with advanced solutions that address a broad range of growing content needs.

The increasing demand for rich and engaging content, with higher resolutions and more frames per second, is generating the need for faster, more flexible high-capacity storage solutions to help streamline workflows and keep up with high-pressure project demands. For every step of the workflow - from capture and transfer to archive - Western Digital is committed to advancing technology to help professionals and creators get work done faster and more efficiently, ultimately saving time and money, so they can focus on their creativity.

TrendForce reports that anticipation of NAND Flash price hikes into Q2 has motivated certain suppliers to minimize losses and lower costs in hopes of returning to profitability this year. Kioxia and WD led the charge from March, boosting their capacity utilization rates to nearly 90%—a move not widely adopted by their competitors.

TrendForce points out that to meet the demand surge in the second half of the year, especially given Kioxia and Western Digital's currently low inventory, the production increase is mainly targeting 112-layer and select 2D products. This strategy is expected not only to secure profitability within the year but also to contribute to a projected 10.9% rise in the annual NAND Flash industry supply bit growth rate for 2024.

With the effective reduction of production by suppliers, the price of memory is rebounding, and the semiconductor memory market finally shows signs of recovery. From the perspective of market dynamics and demand changes, NAND Flash, as one of the two major memory products, is experiencing a new round of changes. Since 3Q23, NAND Flash chip prices have been on the rise for several consecutive months. TrendForce believes that, under the precondition of a conservative market demand prospect for 2024, chip price trends will depend on suppliers' production capacity utilization.

There have been frequent developments in the NAND flash memory industry chain, with some manufacturers indicating a willingness to raise prices or increase production capacity utilization. Wallace C. Kou, General Manager of NAND Flash Supplier SIMO, stated that prices for the second quarter of NAND Flash have already been settled down, which will increase by 20%; some suppliers have started to make profits in the first quarter, and most suppliers will earn money after the second quarter.

The third quarter of 2023 witnessed suppliers dramatically cutting production, which underpinned enterprise SSD prices. The fourth quarter saw a resurgence in contract prices, driven by robust buying activity and heightened demand from server brands and buoyed by optimistic capital expenditure forecasts for 2024. This, combined with increased demand from various end products entering their peak sales period and ongoing reductions in OEM NAND Flash inventories, resulted in some capacity shortages. Consequently, fourth-quarter enterprise SSD prices surged by over 15%. TrendForce highlights that this surge in demand and prices led to a 47.6% QoQ increase in enterprise SSD industry revenues in 4Q23, reaching approximately $23.1 billion.

The stage is set for continued fervor as we settle into the new year and momentum from server brand orders continues to heat up—particularly from Chinese clients. On the supply side, falling inventory levels and efforts to exit loss-making positions have prompted enterprise SSD prices to climb, with contract prices expected to increase by over 25%. This is anticipated to fuel a 20% revenue growth in Q1.

TrendForce reports a substantial 24.5% QoQ increase in NAND Flash industry revenue, hitting US$11.49 billion in 4Q23. This surge is attributed to a stabilization in end-demand spurred by year-end promotions, along with an expansion in component market orders driven by price chasing, leading to robust bit shipments compared to the same period last year. Additionally, the corporate sector's continued positive outlook for 2024 demand—compared to 2023—and strategic stockpiling have further fueled this growth.

Looking ahead to 1Q24, despite it traditionally being an off-season, the NAND Flash industry is expected to see a continued increase in revenue by another 20%. This anticipation is underpinned by significant improvements in supply chain inventory levels and ongoing price rises, with clients ramping up their orders to sidestep potential supply shortages and escalating costs. The ongoing expansion of order sizes is expected to drive NAND Flash contract prices up by an average of 25%.

Western Digital Corp. ("Western Digital" or "the Company") today provided an update on its previously announced plan to separate into two independent, publicly traded companies. On track for the second half of calendar year 2024, significant progress towards the completion of the separation is underway with key transactional projects including global legal entity establishment, customer and supplier contract transfers, final stage preparation for government filings, and initial executive leadership appointments for both HDD and Flash companies post-separation.

Announced on October 30, 2023, Western Digital plans to separate its HDD and Flash businesses, creating two independent, public companies with market-specific, strategic focus. The company's separation will better position each franchise to execute innovative technology and product development, capitalize on unique growth opportunities, extend respective market leadership positions, and operate more efficiently with distinct capital structures.

Japan's Jiji news agency has cottoned onto a major computer memory industry rumble—a Friday Reuters report suggests that Kioxia has offered an olive branch to SK Hynix, perhaps in a renewed push to get its proposed (and once rejected) merger with Western Digital over the finishing line. The South Korean memory manufacturing juggernaut took great issue with the suggested formation of a mighty Japanese-American 3D NAND memory chip conglomerate—SK Hynix's opposition reportedly placed great pressure on Western Digital (WD), and discussions with Kioxia ended last October.

Kioxia is seemingly eager to resume talks with WD, but requires a thumbs up from SK Hynix—according to Jiji's insider source(s), the Tokyo-headquartered manufacturer is prepared to offer its South Korean rival a nice non-volatile memory production deal. Kioxia's best Japanese 3D NAND fabrication facilities could play host to SK Hynix designs, although it is too early to tell whether this bid has been accepted. The Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants are set to receive a 150 billion yen Government subsidy—Kioxia and WD's joint venture is expected to move into cutting-edge semiconductor production. The Japanese government is hoping to secure its native operations in times of industry flux.

More than mere modes of transportation, today's software-defined vehicles are a result of the ongoing transformation of the automobile from a product that is mainly hardware-based to a software-centric device on wheels. Premium vehicles today can have up to 150 million lines of software code, distributed among hundreds of electronic control units (ECUs), sensors, cameras, Lidar and more.

It is critical for automotive OEMs to ensure the quality and reliability of these software-intensive systems. Automotive SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) is an industry-standard guideline for evaluating the automotive embedded software development process. This ISO/IEC 15504 standard proves the software and development capabilities of automotive suppliers and manufacturers meet OEM requirements and incorporate best practices throughout the automotive software development cycle.

Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corporation announced today that their joint venture manufacturing facilities at Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants have been approved to receive an up to 150 billion yen subsidy, including facilities that will produce its latest generation of 3D flash memory based on the innovative wafer bonding technology and future generation advanced nodes. The subsidy will be granted under a designated government program aimed at facilitating corporate investment in cutting-edge semiconductor production facilities and securing stable production of semiconductors in Japan. This marks the second time that Kioxia's and Western Digital's joint venture manufacturing facilities are receiving this subsidy from the Japanese government. Previously, the joint venture manufacturing facility at Yokkaichi was approved to receive up to 92.9 billion yen subsidy from the Japanese government in 2022.

Leveraging an over 20-year joint venture partnership, Kioxia and Western Digital will continue to enhance the development and production capabilities of cutting-edge flash memory at the Yokkaichi and Kitakami plants in Japan. In addition, the two companies will contribute to the development of semiconductor-related industries and talent.

Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal second quarter 2024 financial results. "Western Digital's second quarter results demonstrate that the structural changes we have put in place over the last few years and the strategy we have been executing are producing significant outperformance across our flash and HDD businesses," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "We are seeing our efforts come to fruition as our financial performance met, or exceeded, the non-GAAP guidance ranges we provided in October, and I am confident that our strategy of managing inventory proactively, offering a broad range of products, closely controlling our product cost through focused R&D and manufacturing, and bolstering the agility of our business will allow us to improve through-cycle profitability and dampen business cycles into the future."

• Second quarter revenue was $3.03 billion, up 10% sequentially (QoQ). Cloud revenue increased 23% (QoQ), Client revenue decreased 2% (QoQ) and Consumer revenue increased 15% (QoQ).
• Second quarter GAAP earnings per share (EPS) was $(0.87) and Non-GAAP EPS was $(0.69), which includes $156 million of underutilization-related charges in Flash and HDD.
• Expect fiscal third quarter 2024 revenue to be in the range of $3.20 billion to $3.40 billion.
• Expect Non-GAAP EPS in the range of $(0.10) to $0.20, which includes $30 to $40 million of underutilization-related charges in HDD.

As new applications, use cases and connected devices multiply, Western Digital's enterprise-class hard disk drives (HDDs) remain critical for helping data center customers design more cost-efficient, scalable and sustainable infrastructure. When combined with the emergence of generative AI and the multitude of innovative applications it is enabling, the demand for high-capacity, low-power and reliable storage is poised to surge.

Western Digital leverages numerous technology innovations - ePMR, OptiNAND, UltraSMR and more - to deliver predictable capacity growth in scalable, highly reliable products. Western Digital is now shipping its new 10-disk 24 TB CMR HDD family for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise data center customers. Sampling since August, the new 28 TB SMR HDD is also ramping, adding to the company's SMR leadership position and momentum as its 26 TB SMR HDD exabyte shipments reached nearly half of its data center exabytes shipped in the first quarter fiscal year 2024.

Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: WDC) ("Western Digital" or "the Company") today announced its Board of Directors has unanimously approved a plan to separate its HDD and Flash businesses. Creating two independent, public companies with market-specific, strategic focus, the company's separation will better position each franchise to execute innovative technology and product development, capitalize on unique growth opportunities, extend respective leadership positions, and operate more efficiently with distinct capital structures. The transaction also provides strategic optionality for both businesses. The separation is intended to be structured in a tax-free manner and is targeted for the second half of calendar year 2024.

"Our HDD and Flash businesses are both well positioned to capitalize on the data storage industry's significant market dynamics, and as separate companies, each will have the strategic focus and resources to pursue opportunities in their respective markets. Importantly, separating these franchises will unlock significant value for Western Digital shareholders, allowing them to participate in the upside of two industry leaders with distinct growth and investment profiles," said David Goeckeler, CEO, Western Digital. "We have already laid important groundwork by building market-leading portfolios and enhancing the operational efficiency of each business, including the creation of separate Flash and HDD product business units and separating operational capabilites over the past several years. Additionally, we now have strong product, operational, and financial leadership in place to execute this plan successfully. Each business is in a solid position to succeed on its own, and the actions we are announcing today will further enable each company to drive long-term success in the years to come."