WD, SanDisk team up to create innovative solid state hybrid drives

MANILA, Philippines - WD, a Western Digital company, and SanDisk Corp., a global leader in flash memory storage solutions, have announced their collaboration to introduce hybrid storage devices that feature best-in-class flash memory technology from SanDisk and best-in-class hard drive technology from WD.

SanDisk is supplying a SanDisk iSSD storage device for the WD Black solid state hybrid drive, the world’s thinnest 2.5-inch SSHD solution, which utilizes both WD proprietary hybrid technology and industry standard SATA IO technology.

The SanDisk iSSD brings an elegant balance of performance, low power consumption, cost, reliability, and a compact form factor to this SSHD, which will offer ample storage to meet consumers’ growing appetite for digital content as well as flash-enabled speed, data throughput and responsiveness — all within ultra-slim form factors.

“I am delighted for SanDisk to team up with WD on these exciting new hybrid products,” said Kevin Conley, SanDisk senior vice president and general manager of client storage solutions.

“By combining SanDisk’s unparalleled flash memory expertise and technology with the hard drive know-how of WD, WD Black SSHDs offer outstanding hard drive-like capacity, and the slim form factor and the level of performance that you will only get with flash memory solutions,” Conley said.

“Working with SanDisk, WD realized our vision for products that combine the best of both technologies,” said Matt Rutledge, WD vice president of client computing. “WD’s SSHDs are a significant achievement in the continuing SSHD/flash storage revolution.”

WD Black SSHDs use WD hybrid technology that blends responsive, intelligent flash memory technology from SanDisk with high-capacity hard drives from WD.

This powerful combination greatly improves the PC user experience, enabling both high capacity and a higher level of performance than traditional hard disk drives, including increased speed, instant-on and faster application launching.

With device volume being a key concern for PC manufacturers who want to design slimmer devices, the WD Black SSHDs are designed to accommodate integration into the market’s thinnest notebooks.

The WD Black 5mm SSHD offers 500GB of capacity, while utilizing almost 50 percent less volume than current standard notebook hard drives (which are approximately 9.5 mm).

The low-profile of the solid state hybrid drive is complemented by the extremely small form factor of the SanDisk iSSD, which is built on 19 nanometer (nm) process technology, the world’s smallest and most advanced semiconductor manufacturing process.

The WD Black 5mm SSHDs are shipping to OEMs. WD is also currently shipping to OEMs ultra-slim, 7-mm and 9.5-mm SSHDs for portable devices.