Western Digital today introduces new solutions from its SanDisk brand and SanDisk Professional line ahead of IBC2023, further enriching its ecosystem of digital content storage solutions for the broadcasting, media and entertainment industry. These pro-grade products, which include two new desktop hard drive solutions and a memory card, offer the quality and dependability required for production-level video workflows without compromising the premium design.

"It is exciting to see Western Digital continue to expand its Thunderbolt offerings, which provide the higher-end capabilities and reliability that the media and entertainment industry needs," said Jason Ziller, General Manager, Client Connectivity Division, Intel Corporation. "By utilizing the power of our Thunderbolt technology, enterprise-class hard drives and multi-device connectivity solutions support prosumers and creative professionals, and their increasingly complex demands and innovative use cases."

TrendForce's latest research paints a vivid picture: Q2 saw the NAND Flash market still grappling with lackluster demand and being significantly outpaced by supply. The ASP of NAND Flash also took a hit, tumbling 10-15%. Nevertheless, there was a silver lining as bit shipments grew by 19.9% QoQ from a low baseline in 1Q23. To sum up, the Q2 landscape of the NAND Flash sector witnessed a 7.4% QoQ growth in revenue, reaching US$9.338 billion.

From Q2, Samsung began reining in production with a further squeeze expected for the third quarter. With inventories set to thin out, price hikes loom on the horizon, possibly offering a remedy to the chronic supply-demand imbalance. Yet, a crowded supplier landscape in the NAND Flash sector means that many players, faced with hefty inventories, will likely continue aggressive sales into Q3. Forecasts suggests a deceleration in ASP decline for NAND Flash products in Q3 to 5-10%. Riding the stockpiling momentum for the high season, bit shipments are set to rise, propelling Q3 revenue growth past the 3% threshold.

To help consumers get the most out of their handheld gaming PC experience, WD_BLACK from Western Digital is introducing a new premium, high-performance M.2 2230 solution architected for today's handheld PC gamer. Building upon the WD_BLACK legacy of performance storage for all kinds of competitive gamers, the company is introducing the WD_BLACK SN770M NVMe SSD. According to a recent Gartner report, the handheld gaming console market is expected to reach 14.8M by 2027. As the mobile gaming market continues to grow and more AAA titles are released, new and innovative storage solutions are being released and developed to ensure mobile gamers are able to make the most of their on-the-go gaming experience.

"With game sizes continually becoming larger, it's easy for handheld game consoles to fill up over time with new games and regular updates," said Eric Spanneut, vice president of client SSDs for Western Digital. "The new WD_BLACK SN770M NVMe SSD boosts available storage up to 2TB2 and is specifically designed to handle the peak performance of demanding games for handheld gaming PCs."

Recently, the spot market for NAND Flash chips has seen a rise in active price inquiries for certain products, a movement driven by successful increases in wafer contract prices. TrendForce reports this uptick primarily stems from negotiations in late August between NAND Flash suppliers and key Chinese module makers. These discussions led to a new wafer contract that successfully boosted the price of 512 Gb wafers by approximately 10%.

Other suppliers have also raised prices for their comparable products, signaling a shift in supplier sentiment: they are now less inclined to finalize deals at lower prices. This change has contributed to a short-term surge in the wafer spot market. Nevertheless, whether this surge in procurement is supported by actual end-user demand remains uncertain, as these orders have arisen in reaction to adjustments in supply-side pricing.

TrendForce research reveals that, due to the impacts of high inflation and economic downturn, CSPs are adopting more conservative strategies when it comes to capital expenditure and consistently reducing their annual server demand forecasts. Currently, CSPs in China have reported a decline in cloud orders compared to last year, leading to a subsequent decrease in annual procurement volumes for enterprise SSDs. In North America, some clients have postponed mass production timelines for new server platforms while ramping up investments in AI servers. These factors have resulted in enterprise SSD orders falling below expectations. Consequently, global enterprise SSD revenue hit an all-time low in the second quarter, totaling just $1,500 million—a QoQ decrease of 24.9%.

Demand for AI servers remains strong in the third quarter, while orders and shipment momentum for general-purpose servers have yet to show signs of recovery. This continues to put pressure on the purchasing volume of enterprise SSDs, and annual bit volume is expected to be lower than last year. Meanwhile, vendors have once again reduced capacity utilization to slow down inventory growth. Server customers still maintain high inventory levels, and their purchasing momentum remains insufficient. This is expected to lead to an approximate 15% QoQ decline in the average price of enterprise SSDs in the third quarter, which may further result in a lackluster revenue performance for the peak season.

Over the past few months there have been reports of issues with SanDisk portable SSDs and Western Digital released a firmware update in May that was meant to prevent the drives from "unexpectedly disconnect from a computer". However, it appears that this firmware update didn't solve the problem and Western Digital is now being taken to court over drives not just having disconnect issues, but also randomly failing. The court case is expected to become a class action suit, as the plaintiff claims that the issue of failing drives affect tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people in the USA.

The models included in the complaint includes the SanDisk Extreme Pro, Extreme Portable, Extreme Pro Portable and WD My Passport SSD. A further firmware update was released in July, which is said to have made the issues even worse, with data being lost on drives or being inaccessible to drive owners. In some cases the drives go into read only mode, but sometimes this means that the drives become inaccessible to the OS, which in turn also means dataloss to the user. Time will tell how this plays out, but it's not looking great for Western Digital, but it wouldn't be the first time a storage device maker has been taken to court over failing products.

From the cloud, to the edge, to the enterprise, data center architects are deploying higher levels of flash to unlock the potential of AI, object storage, file sharing and more. At the same time, they are laser-focused on controlling spend and must find solutions to help them manage, scale and utilize storage assets more efficiently. This is driving a growing trend to disaggregate and share NVMe flash over fabric (NVMe-oF) for improved performance, availability and flexibility of storage resources.

Helping customers simplify NVMe/NVMe-oF storage deployment, Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC) today announced its enhanced OpenFlex Data24 3200 NVMe-oF JBOF/Storage Platform along with the next-generation RapidFlex A2000 and C2000 NVMe-oF fabric bridge devices (FBDs), and the new Ultrastar DC SN655 PCIe Gen 4.0 dual-port NVMe SSD. These new storage solutions are enabling an ecosystem, providing more flexibility and choice for simplifying NVMe and NVMe-oF deployment for customers. Western Digital is now the only company with vertical integration capabilities targeting both ends of the Ethernet wire to deliver solutions where data travels from the server initiator to the storage target.

Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC) today reported fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 financial results. "Throughout the fiscal fourth quarter and fiscal year, Western Digital continued to optimize our operations and successfully execute our innovative product roadmap, priming ourselves for greater profitability when demand rebounds across hard drives and flash. As a result of these efforts, we delivered revenue above our expectation and delivered a range of industry-leading products to our customers," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO.

"We are encouraged by several indicators signaling improving Flash market dynamics. Our two largest end markets, Client and Consumer, are returning to growth, inventories are normalizing, content per unit is increasing and price declines have been moderating. Western Digital is well-positioned to capitalize on improving market conditions and capture long-term growth opportunities in data storage, spanning from client to edge to cloud," continued David Goeckeler.

Designed for Xbox premiered its first collection with a variety of gaming accessories in playful pastel tones last spring. This year, it's time to sparkle and shine for Designed for Xbox's second collection! The new Designed for Xbox Summer Collection 2023 will include 7 shimmery, glimmery accessories for every Xbox player wanting to outsparkle the competition. Designed especially for you and crafted by our amazing partners, each product brings a unique flare that will surely brighten up any gaming session.

PowerA Advantage Wired Controller for Xbox Series X|S - Sparkle
Add some stellar style and performance to your game with the PowerA Advantage Wired Controller for Xbox Series X|S in an all-new purple sparkle design. With glittering swirls of purple and gold, this one-of-a-kind controller looks like it was sent from a deep-space nebula. Licensed by Xbox, this controller features two mappable Advanced Gaming Buttons you can program on-the-fly, and 3-Way Trigger Locks for game-specific trigger depth. Works great on Windows 10/11 too. Quality backed with a 2-year limited warranty.

In keeping with Framework's philosophy, the Framework Laptop 16 has socketed memory and storage, making it easy for you to choose what you need on day one and upgrade to more any time later. Our pre-built configurations have set combinations of memory and storage, while on DIY Edition, you can choose any of the modules we offer in the Marketplace or bring your own if you prefer. We've taken both memory and storage to the next level on Framework Laptop 16. For memory, we've created new semi-custom Framework-branded DDR5-5600 modules. For storage, we have two M.2 slots, as well as the ability to add two more in the Expansion Bay for colossal storage capacity.

One core challenge we aimed to solve for memory on the Framework Laptop 16 was being able to offer the same modules for pre-built systems, DIY Edition, and the Framework Marketplace. Historically, we needed to source separate "OEM" modules from Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron for use in our factory, and "Retail" modules from Crucial to offer in DIY Edition and the Marketplace. Instead, we worked with memory maker ADATA to create custom-label modules that we can use across all areas. Currently, we're leveraging SK Hynix DDR5-5600 memory chips for these modules, but may use other chips that meet the performance bar in the future as well.

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]

News reports about Western Digital's implementation of new security measures started appearing online last week—My Cloud product owners were puzzled upon discovering that their access to cloud services had been blocked. Devices not updated with the latest firmware - version 5.26.202 (My Cloud) and 9.4.1-101 (My Cloud Home, SanDisk ibi) - were and continue to be barred from the start date effective June 15. This relatively new measure has been implemented in order to prevent further exploits of security vulnerabilities. WD is likely shoring up its online defenses following a major cyber attack on its My Cloud back in March, a hacker group demanded a hefty ransom fee for the return of private customer data. WD restored My Cloud services by mid-May, and released several software updates and security fixes.

According to a company security bulletin (issued last week): "Devices on firmware below 5.26.202 will not be able to connect to Western Digital cloud services starting June 15, 2023, and users will not be able to access data on their device through mycloud.com and the My Cloud OS 5 mobile app until they update the device to the latest firmware...Users can continue to access their data via Local Access." The latest fixes should protect customers from unauthorized access and ransomware attacks, but WD has not provided any further news about any ongoing negotiations with the hacker group behind the Spring data breach.

It appears that Western Digital is getting ready to expand its budget line of WD Blue SSDs with yet another model, this time a smaller jump from the SN570 to the SN580, compared to the jump in model numbers from the SN550 to the SN570. The drive has passed through the PCI-SIG integrators list and from that information we only know it's a PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive with a four lane interface. However, some retailers have already put up the drive for pre-order and this helps us with a few more details.

For starters, it appears that we're once again looking at drives in the 500 GB to the 2 TB range, although this doesn't mean that WD couldn't launch a 4 TB variant as well, but it seems unlikely. What we also learnt is that these product pages are place holders, as the drives are listed for the same, or higher pricing than the WD Black SN850X, which makes no sense for a budget drive which should be closer to the US$100/€100 mark than the equivalent of twice that. Another European retailer is also listing the current SN570 as being EOL:ed on the 31st of July, suggesting that the SN580 should launch around that date. The same retailer is listing the SN580 as the replacement drive under its part number, which is WDS200T3B0E for the 2 TB SKU.

Western Digital introduced the WD Black SN850P M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSD for PlayStation 5 game consoles, which is an officially-licensed PlayStation 5 accessory. The drive can also used with PCs. It comes with a factory-fitted heatsink, and has been extensively tested for compatibility with the game console. The drive comes in three capacity-based variants—1 TB (WDBBYV0010BNC-WRSN), 2 TB (WDBBYV0020BNC-WRSN), and 4 TB (WDBBYV0040BNC-WRSN. All three models offer sequential read speeds of up to 7.3 GB/s, and while the 1 TB variant offers up to 6.3 GB/s sequential writes, the 2 TB and 4 TB ones are rated for up to 6.6 GB/s sequential writes. Their write endurance is rated at 600 TBW, 1,200 TBW, and 2,400 TBW, respectively. Western Digital is backing these drives with 5-year warranties. The company didn't reveal pricing.

Western Digital has officially unveiled its WD_BLACK C50 expansion card lineup for Microsoft's current generation Xbox Series X and S consoles, to not much surprise given that one of these products was leaked back in Spring of this year. Best Buy preempted Western Digital's announcement just over two months ago when a listing for the WD_BLACK C50 1 TB model appeared on their store site. Seagate has been the official partner (with Microsoft) for the manufacture and distribution of Xbox Series console storage expansion cards since launch time (November 2020), and has recently adjusted their pricing - possibly in anticipation of Western Digital's cheaper third party alternatives.

Xbox Series console owners have often complained about the system's expensive proprietary storage expansion ecosystem (relative to Sony's PlayStation 5 utilizing industry standard M.2 SSDs), so new competition in this highly controlled market segment is welcome. Two WD_BLACK C50 expansion cards are now available from today - in the shape of 1T B ($149.99) and 500 GB ($79.99) models. Susan Park, vice president, global strategic partnerships at Western Digital has introduced these new offerings: "Xbox consoles have been a much beloved gaming staple in households around the globe for decades. With the introduction of the WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox, gamers can continue to enjoy their favorite games with more flexibility so they can focus on accomplishing their next mission or defeating their final boss." Western Digital specifies that these units come with a five-year long warranty, and a further incentive for purchase is an included one-month trial of Game Pass Ultimate.

Western Digital has expanded its portfolio of Nintendo-licensed SanDisk microSD cards with the release of its highest capacity card yet, a 1 TB SanDisk microSD card for Nintendo Switch systems. In partnership with Nintendo, this supersized offering provides the highest capacity in the lineup of officially licensed SanDisk microSD cards, giving Nintendo Switch players even more space to take their favorite games on the go.

The new 1 TB card bears the Hylian Crest, inspired by The Legend of Zelda, and has been tested and approved for use with all Nintendo Switch systems. With the new capacity nearly doubling the amount of storage previously offered in the range of Nintendo-licensed SanDisk microSD cards, players will be able to expand their digital game library and store their favorite titles in one place. The Legend of Zelda fans in particular can rest assured that they can have the space they need to take on the exciting new chapter in the franchise, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Due to the current lack of demand for NAND flash, the merger talks between Kioxia and Western Digital have picked up pace once again. The two companies have been at it since 2021 and it was reported back in January that the two companies once again wanted to try and combine their NAND production business. According to Reuters, the two have been pushed into the meeting room once again, largely due to the two NAND giants wanting to cut costs in a market where demand for their products isn't what it once was.

Kioxia and Western Digital are the second and fourth largest manufacturers of NAND flash, although all the memory is made in Kioxia's facilities. A merger of the two would create a company that is said to be owned at 43 percent by Kioxia and 37 percent by Western Digital, with current shareholders of the two companies getting the remaining 20 percent. However, a potential merger isn't without hurdles, as it's likely to be scrutinised by both the US and the PRC due to potential antitrust issues, with the combined company owning a third of the global NAND flash market. Kioxia has even shelved plans for a public offering, due to the sluggish demand for NAND flash. Time will tell if the two can come to an agreement, but it doesn't look like the best of times for a merger either.

Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC) today reported fiscal third quarter 2023 financial results. "Over the last several years, our team has focused on enhancing business agility and delivering a range of innovative, industry-leading products that address the increasing data storage demands of our customers," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "The groundwork we laid, combined with the actions we have taken since the beginning of this fiscal year to right-size and refocus our businesses, have enabled us to navigate a dynamic environment. I am pleased that we delivered non-GAAP gross margin at the higher end of our guidance range due to strong execution across both our HDD and Flash businesses."

Microsoft's official Xbox Twitter account has today announced that its official range of Xbox Series console storage expansion cards has been reduced in price: "Think of all the new games you'll be able to download and play now 👀. The Seagate Storage Expansion Card is now available starting at a lower price: xbx.lv/41e8t57." It is slightly odd that Seagate itself has not announced this lowering of gaming product MSRPs, but today's changes only affect the US market - European and UK listings feature the old prices (at the time of writing). It is not clear whether this discount is a permanent or temporary thing, but the latter is a more likely situation given rumors from last month.

It is very possible that Seagate is reacting to new competition - last month a Best Buy listing revealed that Western Digital is lining up to provide third party storage expansion cards for Xbox Series console owners. The leak of WD's incoming offerings indicated that it would be undercutting its arch rival in terms of pricing, at least with the single model that leaked (1 TB at $179.99) - Seagate has a timed exclusive agreement with Microsoft/Xbox for the licensed production/selling of proprietary cards. The officially sanctioned price drop brings the cards to more reasonable value levels, but Xbox owners have largely agreed that MSRPs were inflated from the beginning. The entry-level 512 GB Seagate model now costs $89.99 (a $50 reduction), the 1 TB model is now available at $149.99 (a $70 reduction) and the top-end 2 TB model gets the largest price slash (of $120) which brings it down to $279.99. Seagate appears to be undercutting WD's BLACK C50 1 TB model (if the Best Buy info leak price was accurate) by $30 with the official 1 TB storage expansion card.

The 43rd edition of the Symposium on VLSI Technology & Circuits, held annually in Kyoto Japan, is charting the way forward for the devices of the future. Held between June 11-16, 2023, this year's symposium will see structured presentations, Q&A, and discussions on some of the biggest technological developments in the logic chip world. The lead (plenary) sessions drop a major hint on the way the wind is blowing. Leadning from the front is an address by Suraya Bhattacharya, Director, System-in-Package, A*STAR, IME, on "Multi-Chiplet Heterogeneous Integration Packaging for Semiconductor System Scaling."

Companies such as AMD and Intel read the tea-leaves, that Moore's Law is buckling, and it's no longer economically feasible to build large monolithic processors at the kind of prices they commanded a decade ago. This has caused companies to ration their allocation of the latest foundry node to only the specific components of their chip design that benefit the most from the latest node, and identify components that don't benefit as much, and disintegrate them into separate dies build on older foundry nodes, which are then connected through innovative packaging technologies.

Western Digital has declared that its My Cloud online service has been compromised by a group of hackers late last month: "On March 26, 2023, Western Digital identified a network security incident involving Western Digital's systems. In connection with the ongoing incident, an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of the Company's systems. Upon discovery of the incident, the Company implemented incident response efforts and initiated an investigation with the assistance of leading outside security and forensic experts. This investigation is in its early stages and Western Digital is coordinating with law enforcement authorities."

The statement, issued on April 4, continues: "The Company is implementing proactive measures to secure its business operations including taking systems and services offline and will continue taking additional steps as appropriate. As part of its remediation efforts, Western Digital is actively working to restore impacted infrastructure and services. Based on the investigation to date, the Company believes the unauthorized party obtained certain data from its systems and is working to understand the nature and scope of that data. While Western Digital is focused on remediating this security incident, it has caused and may continue to cause disruption to parts of the Company's business operations."

Demonstrating continued innovation, Kioxia Corporation and Western Digital Corp. today announced details of their newest 3D flash memory technology. Applying advanced scaling and wafer bonding technologies, the 3D flash memory delivers exceptional capacity, performance and reliability at a compelling cost, which makes it ideal for meeting the needs of exponential data growth across a broad range of market segments.

"The new 3D flash memory demonstrates the benefits of our strong partnership with Kioxia and our combined innovation leadership," said Alper Ilkbahar, Senior Vice President of Technology & Strategy at Western Digital. "By working with one common R&D roadmap and continued investment in R&D, we have been able to productize this fundamental technology ahead of schedule and deliver high-performance, capital-efficient solutions."

TrendForce's latest investigations reveal that the global NAND Flash market has been facing a demand headwind since 2H22. In response, the supply chain has been scrambling to clear out inventory, driving down NAND Flash contract prices by 20-25%. Enterprise SSD took the brunt of the fall with prices plummeting 23-28%. Despite manufacturers lowering prices in an attempt to drive up demand, clients are hesitant to purchase more components for fear of overstock. As a result, NAND Flash bit shipments rose by a mere 5.3% as ASP fell 22.8%. Global NAND Flash revenue was reported to be US$10.29 billion in 4Q22—down 25% QoQ.

TrendForce reports that Kioxia and Micron saw both a reduction in production and price in 4Q22. Kioxia's revenue plunged 30.5% due to weak demand from PC and smartphone clients and data centers readjusting their inventory. Micron generated a quarterly revenue of US$1.1 billion—a staggering 34.7% QoQ drop—that has led them to drastically decrease their capacity utilization rate for fabs. Luckily, Micron was able to ship their 232-layer client SSDs in 4Q22 as scheduled, and with the 176-layer QLC enterprise SSD hot on its heels, Micron's bit shipments are predicted to steadily improve in 2023 with their revenue climbing gradually quarter by quarter.

To help consumers preserve their ever-growing digital world, Western Digital's WD brand is expanding its trusted My Book Desktop Storage lineup. Built upon a legacy of technology innovation, the company has released its highest capacity consumer drive ever with the 22 TB My Book Desktop Hard Drive, giving people greater flexibility to store more of what they love.

"Consumers continue generating data at a rapid pace. In 2022 alone, the average household worldwide generated more than 20 TB of data and we expect this number to continue to rise as people continue to consume and create more data," said John Rydning, research vice president, Global DataSphere at International Data Corporation (IDC), a global market intelligence firm. "While many people rely on the cloud, we know consumers are looking for local storage at their fingertips to help them preserve and readily control their growing amount of personal and business data."

Western Digital Corp. (Nasdaq: WDC) today reported fiscal second quarter 2023 financial results. "The Western Digital team delivered revenue at the high end of our guidance range, despite a challenging flash price environment and continued cloud inventory digestion," said David Goeckeler, Western Digital CEO. "We continue to take action to reset the business in response to the post-pandemic environment by optimizing our cost structure and strengthening our liquidity.

These actions, including strategically reducing our capital expenditures across both flash and HDD and our operating expenses, as well as amending our financial covenants and securing recent financings, will give us the financial flexibility and optionality to weather this cycle, while also positioning us to continue executing our product roadmap and furthering our technical leadership over the long term."