Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal third quarter 2025 financial results.

"Western Digital executed well in its fiscal third quarter achieving revenue at the high end of our guidance range and gross margin over 40%," said Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital. "Even in a world marked by geopolitical uncertainty and shifting tariff dynamics, one thing remains constant: the exponential growth of data. When it comes to storing that data, at scale, no technology rivals the cost-efficiency and reliability of HDDs. With our rich portfolio of storage products, WD is uniquely positioned to meet our customers' mass storage needs."

On April 29, 2025, the company's Board of Directors authorized the adoption of a quarterly cash dividend program beginning with the quarter ending June 27, 2025 and declared a cash dividend of $0.10 per share of the company's common stock, payable on June 18, 2025 to shareholders of record as of June 4, 2025.

Essential to cloud data center infrastructure, hard disk drives (HDDs) are complex devices that blend material science, mechanical engineering and physics. As part of its innovation, HDDs use a range of rare earth elements (REEs) like Neodymium (Nd), Praseodymium (Pr) and Dysprosium (Dy), prized for their magnetic properties to help HDDs precisely read and write data. Yet, traditional recycling methods recover only a fraction of these valuable materials, often missing rare earths entirely, leading to unnecessary waste.

In a multi-party pilot program, Western Digital, in collaboration with Microsoft, Critical Materials Recycling (CMR) and PedalPoint Recycling has taken a major step toward closing that loop. Together, the companies transformed ~50,000 pounds of shredded end-of-life HDDs, mounting caddies and other materials into critical high-value materials, all while significantly reducing environmental impact. This pioneering process of creating a new advanced sorting ecosystem with an eco-friendly non-acid process not only recaptures essential rare earth elements but also extracts metals like gold (Au), copper (Cu), aluminium (Al) and steel, feeding them back into the U.S. supply chain, supporting industries that rely on these resources—such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, and advanced electronics. When scaled worldwide, this new recycling process could return a lot of recovered rare earths to the U.S. supply pool, drastically reducing the need for virgin material mining detrimental to people and planet. Today, most primary production (>85%) of REEs occurs outside the U.S. and the current domestic recycling rate for REEs is very low (<10%).

Last November, Western Digital introduced its WD_BLACK SN7100 NVMe SSD series—advertised as utilizing their: "latest TLC 3D NAND." This new SSD design offers: "speeds up to 7,250 MB/s read and 6,900 MB/s write (for 1 and 2 TB models), providing up to a 35% performance boost over our previous generation SSD." The manufacturer's official press material did not explicitly state that the SN7100 would serve as a natural replacement for their well-regarded SN770 (2022) product family, but W1zzard's recent glowing review (of the 2 TB variant) refers back to the forebear on multiple occasions.

As low-key teased by last November's press announcement, a 4 TB WD_BLACK SN7100 model is arriving in 2025—freshly updated listings indicate an imminent launch at retail/e-tail. Interestingly, WD's SN770 range never reached beyond a 2 TB barrier. Search engine results—when inputting the "WDS400T4X0E-00CJA0" identifier—point to a "March 2025" SN7100 series data sheet, and SanDisk's UK store accepting pre-orders for £255.99 (~$332 USD). Availability status is currently designated as: "within 1 week." Western Digital's spec comparison table (see below) proudly showcases the 4 TB variant's impressive endurance (TBW) credential: 2400. Its lower capacity siblings (1 TB and 2 TB) hold slight advantages in terms of read and write speeds. TechPowerUp's resident SSD reviewer deemed the SN7100 2 TB model worthy of an "Editor's Choice" badge, but wished for a larger capacity option. We hope that a 4 TB evaluation sample will make its way to W1zz HQ in the near future.

Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced today that it has hired Ahmed Shihab as Chief Product Officer. Shihab, a seasoned expert in cloud storage needs and requirements, most recently served as Corporate Vice President of Azure Storage at Microsoft. In this role, he led the engineering and operations teams for Object and Block storage, driving the design and development of Microsoft's cloud storage solutions. As Western Digital's new Chief Product Officer, Shihab is responsible for leading product strategy and engineering as the company accelerates innovation and development of HDD products and solutions.

"Ahmed joins Western Digital at a pivotal time for the HDD industry with data generation, AI adoption, and the demand for scalable storage continuing to grow. His expertise will be instrumental in driving innovation and meeting the industry's evolving needs," said Irving Tan, CEO of Western Digital. "Given his tenure with storage and infrastructure design and development, Ahmed is the right leader to move Western Digital forward as we help our customers unleash the power and value of data."

Technology advancements in AI, video, analytics, VR, photography, and media and entertainment (M&E) have rapidly increased the demand for more data storage. Every stage of professional workflows—production, analysis, editing, collaboration and archiving—demands more capacity, performance and flexibility. In response, Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) is unveiling several new product enhancements built to meet the growing need for higher capacity storage solutions for today's data-driven demands.

HDD Capacity and Performance for Creative Workflows
Western Digital has unveiled higher capacities across its Professional product suite. Solutions feature enterprise-class Ultrastar 7200 RPM HDDs for high performance, reliability and fast read/write speeds.

TrendForce's latest research reveals that the NAND Flash market faced downward pressure in 4Q24 as PC and smartphone manufacturers continued inventory clearance efforts, leading to significant supply chain adjustments. Consequently, NAND Flash prices reversed downward, with ASP dropping 4% QoQ, while overall bit shipments declined by 2%. Total industry revenue fell 6.2% QoQ to US$16.52 billion.

Looking ahead to 1Q25, the traditional slow season effect remains unavoidable despite suppliers actively reducing production. Server and other key end-market inventory restocking has slowed, and with both order volumes and contract prices declining sharply. NAND Flash industry revenue is expected to drop by up to 20% QoQ. However, as production cuts take effect and prices stabilize, the NAND Flash market is expected to recover in the second half of 2025.

Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) announced the successful completion of the planned separation of the company's Flash business. Earlier this month, Western Digital held its Investor Day event where the company shared its vision, strategy and plan to enable its customers to unleash the power and value of data. Looking ahead, Western Digital Chief Executive Officer Irving Tan shares how the future of HDDs begins now here in his latest blog post.

The Register reports that a federal judge has rejected Western Digital's attempt to delay payment of a $553 million patent infringement penalty, giving the storage giant just seven days to secure a bond or pay up. The ruling, issued February 11, comes as Western Digital faces mounting pressure over intellectual property disputes. To be more specific it's about SPEX Technologies' Patent No. 6,088,802, which protects security features in peripheral devices. In October 2023, a California jury ruled that several WD products, including Ultrastar and My Book drives infringed on this 1997 patent. Judge James Selna later expanded the initial $316 million verdict to include $237 million in interest charges.

Western Digital's upcoming corporate restructuring complicates the situation. The company plans to split into two separate entities by February 21—one to focus on NAND flash memory under the SanDisk brand and another to maintain the traditional hard drive business. This pending division has raised questions about how to enforce the damages, with Judge Selna mentioning his "concerns about potential corporate restructuring" because the judgment targets Western Digital Technologies Inc. SPEX has voiced concerns about the company split pointing out in legal papers their lack of insight into which new entity would pay the penalty or if either would have enough money to cover the owed amount.

Western Digital (Nasdaq: WDC) held the company's Investor Day today, announcing a vision and strategy for the future as the planned separation of the company's Flash business nears its expected completion on February 21, 2025. CEO Designate Irving Tan reinforced Western Digital's leadership in delivering world-class, sustainable storage solutions at scale. With a deep legacy in HDD technology and innovation, Western Digital remains the trusted partner for the world's largest hyperscalers, CSPs and OEMs, delivering cutting-edge solutions at the right time with low total cost of ownership (TCO). From industry-leading ePMR CMR HDDs and UltraSMR technology, to HAMR and beyond, Western Digital continues to drive innovation across its portfolio, creating unmatched long-term value for its customers.

Tan shared Western Digital's projection on how the proliferation of AI will impact the HDD industry and the value of data stored. As companies generate and store more data, growing use cases such as text-to-image GenAI workloads, text-to-video applications and a rising demand for massive data lakes to fuel AI models are expected to increase HDD exabyte shipments at a 23% CAGR from 2024 to 2028. Western Digital remains steadfast in addressing the ever-growing data demands of the cloud and enterprise markets, delivering the scalability, TCO and sustainability needed to store the majority of the world's generated data, which is expected to grow 3x between 2023 and 2028.

Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal second quarter 2025 financial results.

"As we finalize the separation of our businesses, we are confident that both Western Digital and Sandisk will continue driving innovation and providing compelling storage solutions to customers while delivering long-term shareholder value," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "We expect that our strong performance in HDD and our strategic approach to managing our Flash business within the New Era of NAND will allow each company to capture the growing demand for storage driven by the AI Data Cycle."

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, the global leader in the development of standards for the microelectronics industry, today announced the publication of JESD220G: Universal Flash Storage 4.1. In addition, an update to the complementary JESD223F UFS Host Controller Interface (UFSHCI) version 4.1 standard has also been published. Developed for mobile applications and computing systems requiring high performance with low power consumption, UFS 4.1 offers faster data access and improved performance over the earlier version of the standard while maintaining hardware compatibility to UFS 4.0. Both standards are available for download from the JEDEC website.

"JEDEC members are continually innovating to shape the standards that will drive the next generation of mobile devices and advanced applications, and the committee's dedication to ongoing improvements to the UFS series is paving the way for future innovation," said Mian Quddus, Chairman of the JEDEC Board of Directors and the JC-64 Committee for Embedded Memory Storage and Removable Memory Cards.

Western Digital is kicking off the Consumer Electronics Show 2025 (CES 2025) with new SanDisk storage solutions uniquely designed for creators and gaming enthusiasts at home, in the studio and everywhere in between. Whether focusing on producing high-quality content that inspires others or saving content on storage products inspired by the fan-favorite Fortnite Peely character, the latest releases keep speed, capacity, durability and portability top of mind for those who need it most.

A Product Portfolio Dedicated to Elevating and Empowering Content Creators
Developed for creators who are looking to elevate and deliver content that speaks to the world, the SanDisk Creator Series is designed for each step in the creative process, from idea to impact. The series features a tailored, professional-grade collection of products infused with vibrant colors that celebrate creativity and individuality, including the all-new SanDisk Creator Phone SSD with MagSafe compatibility. The SanDisk Creator Series is curated to keep up with the intensity of a demanding workflow and to ignite creative potential:

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: MU) today announced it is appointing Mike Cordano as the company's executive vice president of worldwide sales, effective immediately. Cordano will succeed Mike Bokan, who announced a few months ago his intention to retire from Micron in fiscal 2025 after more than twenty-eight years with the company. Bokan will support Cordano over the next several months to ensure a seamless transition. Cordano will report directly to Sanjay Mehrotra, President and CEO of Micron.

Cordano joins Micron with a 30-year track record of success in executive leadership, driving innovative business development, and executing successful go-to-market strategies. His experience includes over 8 years at Western Digital (WD), where he held ever-increasing executive positions, including President and Chief Operating Officer and President of the Hitachi Global Storage Technology (HGST) subsidiary. Immediately before the acquisition by WD, he held the position of Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at HGST. Most recently, he was the Founder and Partner of Prime Impact Capital.

TrendForce's latest investigations found that the enterprise SSD market experienced significant growth in 3Q24, driven by robust demand from AI-related applications. Prices surged as suppliers struggled to keep pace with market needs, pushing overall industry revenue up by an impressive 28.6% QoQ. Demand for high-capacity models was especially strong, fueled by the arrival of NVIDIA's H-series products and sustained orders for AI training servers. As a result, the total procurement volume for enterprise SSDs rose 15% compared to the previous quarter.

Looking ahead to 4Q24, TrendForce forecasts a slowdown in enterprise SSD revenue as procurement demand begins to cool. Total procurement volume is expected to dip, with the peak buying period behind and server OEM orders being slightly revised downward. As shipment volume declines, overall industry revenue is also projected to decrease in the fourth quarter.

Western Digital announced it has released several new Flash storage solutions to help pros and consumers get ready for the holidays. Whether looking for the perfect gift, or planning a new venture in the New Year, the innovative products from its award-winning SanDisk and WD_BLACK brands reach new levels of speed, reliability, and capacity, serving a diverse set of digital storage needs.

High Performance, Super Capacity Portable SSDs
The expanded SanDisk portfolio of portable SSDs includes two offerings that feature next-generation SSD speeds and help defy the limits of durability. The new drives are perfect for pros or creators and anyone else who needs to store large amounts of data on the go in the toughest of climates.

Western Digital Corp. today reported fiscal first quarter financial results. "Western Digital's performance in the fiscal first quarter demonstrates our commitment to operational excellence and disciplined capital investment as our focus on lasting quality and reliability, driven by industry leading innovation and a diversified portfolio, has allowed us to target the most attractive end markets to improve profitability." said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO.

"The strength of our diversified product portfolio is demonstrated by the rapid emergence of enterprise SSD as a core pillar of growth within our Flash business. The strength of our HDD product portfolio lies in our UltraSMR technology, delivering the industry's highest capacity hard drives with unmatched reliability, quality, and performance, offering a compelling TCO to our customers. With the continued proliferation of the AI Data Cycle, our Flash and HDD product portfolios are well-positioned to capitalize on significant opportunities as adoption continues to grow." continued David Goeckeler.

Since its introduction in 2004, millions around the world have trusted WD My Passport drives to store and back up their lives' most precious memories and valuable data. To commemorate this milestone anniversary of its most popular drive, Western Digital Corp. is launching the WD My Passport Ultra, 20th Emerald Anniversary Edition. Over the lifetime of the My Passport drives, Western Digital has provided approximately 180 exabytes of data storage for users worldwide, equivalent to up to 18 billion hours of HD video, up to 46 trillion photos, or up to 35 trillion songs.

Prior to the initial introduction of the WD My Passport drive, users had limited options when it came to taking important files with them on the go, having to sacrifice a power outlet and downtime to add and transfer data. In 2004, My Passport delivered a streamlined solution: portable products that offered an impressive amount of storage for many types of digital files - including videos, music, photos, and documents. What started as a simple solution with 40 GB capacity has increased by up to 150 times to now having the world's highest capacity 2.5" portable hard drive with 6 TB of storage, meeting the needs of the modern digital consumer.

More than just storage, Western Digital HDDs are key enablers for businesses looking to optimize their infrastructure, lower TCO and future-proof their data strategies. Constantly innovating to meet the needs of our data-driven world, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced that it is now shipping the world's highest capacity UltraSMR HDD with up to 32 TB leveraging the time-tested, reliable energy-assisted PMR (ePMR) recording technology for hyperscalers, CSPs and enterprises. For those who want a drop-in ready HDD for today's data-intensive workloads, the company is also now shipping the world's highest-capacity ePMR CMR HDD with up to 26 TB for enterprise and channel customers. With the world's first commercially available 11-disk design and field-proven technology, these new drives reinforce Western Digital's commitment to delivering HDD technology that raises the bar on capacity, reliability and innovation.

The AI Data Cycle has emerged as a growth driver for the storage industry. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they process and generate vast amounts of data that must be stored efficiently. HDDs play a crucial role in this ecosystem, handling both the input side, where data is gathered, ingested and stored, and the output side, where AI content is generated and preserved. This dual role positions HDDs as a linchpin in the AI Data Cycle, ensuring that data is available when needed and stored with the lowest TCO.

Western Digital Corp. today announced that its PCIe Gen 5 DC SN861 E.1S enterprise-class NVMe SSDs have been certified to support the NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 rack-scale system.

The rapid rise of AI, ML, and large language models (LLMs) is creating a challenge for companies with two opposing forces. Data generation and consumption are accelerating, while organizations face pressure to quickly derive value from this data. Performance, scalability, and efficiency are essential for AI technology stacks as storage demands rise. Certified to be compatible with the GB200 NVL72 system, Western Digital's enterprise SSD addresses the growing needs of the AI market for high-speed accelerated computing combined with low latency to serve compute-intensive AI environments.

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.