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Here at PC Gamer we’d basically given up all hope of ever seeing new Western Digital SSD’s. After waiting patiently for what felt like an age to witness the birth of the brand’s Gen 5 Black SSDs we were hit by the news that SanDisk was taking over the reins earlier this year. This wasn’t exactly bad news, as it was still likely SanDisk would put out a killer drive, just probably without the much beloved ‘WD’ printed on the side of it.
Still, with Wessie Digs being behind some of our favourite storage solutions, including our current top rated gaming SSD, it was with some sadness that we bid the initials farewell.
However, rumours swirl in the tech world with higher read/write speeds than any storage medium. It wasn’t long before whispers of a new WD Black drive were cropping up online, and today those rumours have had a significant bolster to their potential credibility.
We originally saw a post just a few days ago, from Technology Online’s X account, which laid out the specs as well as linked out to an Amazon listing. Unfortunately the listing was taken down pretty fast, so we didn’t get eyes on it, if it was ever available. The account is fairly unknown and was marked with an “#ad” so it was fair to take it with a grain of salt for now.
Today, known tech leaker X user, momomo_us recently posted a screenshot of a very nice looking WD SSD. Momomo-us has been prominent source of accurate early PC information since back when the social media site was still called Twitter and felt somewhat usable. They specifically refer to the drive as a WD Black, and list the specs referring to it as a 4TB SN8100 NVMe Internal Gaming SSD, of course with an included Heatsink. They also state it’s a Gen 5 PCIe 5.0×4, M.2 2280, with Up to 14,900 MB/s, the likely product code being WDS400T1XHM.
Since these posts we’ve also seen a Google listing for a fancy WD Black Gen 5 SSD but it was also removed with haste, and didn’t go anywhere. Since then it’s been silent like the black of night. Whether these glimmers of hope are simply more people caught up in rumours or a few accidentally hitting the listing button too early is hard to tell. Still, the specs and leaks look relatively promising.
Whether what we end up seeing is a SanDisk product with a homage WD printed on the side or not is also still a question yet to be answered. SanDisk isn’t a slacker when it comes to storage, so we can expect a decent SSD either way. Whether it’ll make it into our hall of fame like previous WD Blacks will remain to be seen, and that’s if the damn thing even materials into actuality in the first place.
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Kurt Indovina
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