Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Western Digital to spin off flash business

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 49 posts

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#21

Post by rasz »

dboreham wrote: post #12
splix wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no brand that never produced a SSD with a fault. I had tried all major HDD/SSD brands, and I think every single of them failed at some point. What is important is how they handle that. I had a faulty Sandisk and it was replaced with a working one without any problem or unnecessary question. Some other brands annoy you with stupid questions, puzzles and other tricks trying to avoid doing a replacement. And so…

I've never had a problem with Intel, but they sold that business recently.

Lets not forget killing the drive instead of going read only, and later lying about this being intended outcome despite opposite statements in official documentation.

https://techreport.com/review/26523/the-ssd-endurance-experi...

"After a reboot, the SSD disappeared completely from the Intel software. It was still detected by the storage driver, but only as an inaccessible, 0GB SATA device.

According to Intel, this end-of-life behavior generally matches what’s supposed to happen. The write errors suggest the 335 Series had entered read-only mode. When the power is cycled in this state, a sort of self-destruct mechanism is triggered, rendering the drive unresponsive."

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#22

Post by nix0n »

HPsquared wrote: post #13
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #10

It would be such a great headline if they worked disk and/or disc into it somehow Like > Western Digital spins Disk+Disc Businesses off

Or how it's a bad sector to be in. Edit: I'm sure the editorial staff at The Register are brainstorming a headline at this very moment.

> I'm sure the editorial staff at The Register are brainstorming a headline at this very moment.

They're "disc"-ussing it.

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#24

Post by ginko »

bragr wrote: post #2

So saddle all the legacy liabilities in with the legacy business and slowly suck out the equity, while the flash business grows? I can see how that's a win for investors at least. Are the flash products still going to be branded WD?

Feels like the HDD business is the more stable of the two. The competition in the flash/SSD market if fierce.

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#25

Post by halJordan »

cogman10 wrote: post #3
bragr wrote: post #2

So saddle all the legacy liabilities in with the legacy business and slowly suck out the equity, while the flash business grows? I can see how that's a win for investors at least. Are the flash products still going to be branded WD?

Yup. Seems like an increasingly common move by businesses. AMD did this with global foundries, for example.

Im not following the surprise or maybe incredulity of this sentiment. It's normal and healthy for businesses to shed poor performers and merge to create synergies. The food majors went through this in the 2010s and nobody was crying or implicating malfeasance. The market should be reacting, that's what makes it useful.

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#27

Post by sersi »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #19
kstrauser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nailed it. They’ve been spending goodwill like crazy with debacles like pushing out SMR junk under the Red name. In my experience, their overall quality control has plummeted over the last few years. I’ve bought 3 Red drives for my home Synology. After about a year with each, the drive utilization graph will start creeping up toward a steady 100% while the other drives in the RAID are mostly idle. All drives have the…

I also had two Reds showing bad sectors after around a year, with a Synology. What "colour" drive do you usually buy now? Or even which manufacturer?

I've switched to only buying Toshiba, been very happy with them. They're also more silent as a bonus.

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#28

Post by starttoaster »

splix wrote: post #8
ulfw wrote: post #4

I will never waste money on a Sandisk SSD again. My last one stopped working out of nowhere. Much happier with my Crucial X10.

There is no brand that never produced a SSD with a fault. I had tried all major HDD/SSD brands, and I think every single of them failed at some point. What is important is how they handle that. I had a faulty Sandisk and it was replaced with a working one without any problem or unnecessary question. Some other brands annoy you with stupid questions, puzzles and other tricks trying to avoid doing a replacement. And so…

> and I think every single of them failed at some point.

I understand that you probably are alluding to the fact that you never scientifically measured this experiment and that this is anecdotal. But this is pretty loose verbiage when we're talking about a product that is guaranteed to fail at some point or another. These are a wear item.

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#29

Post by skaushik92 »

Obscurity4340 wrote: post #10

It would be such a great headline if they worked disk and/or disc into it somehow Like > Western Digital spins Disk+Disc Businesses off

They probably needed to prioritize getting the article out fast over coming up with good headlines since it’s a flash sale

Re: Western Digital to spin off flash business

#30

Post by caycep »

duffyjp wrote: post #18
dboreham wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had a problem with Intel, but they sold that business recently.

This summer I bought two Intel 2TB nvme drives for $65 each. Not the newest tech but I've also never had a problem with an Intel SSD. I still have my original 40GB from 2012 in an old laptop and it works just like new. The company that bought their SSD division (Solidigm) supports the Intel branded drives, and their utility had firmware updates ready to go for the ones I bought. I'd probably buy a Solidigm if I neede…

It's the Koreans - SK Hynix bought it and is using it as their consumer drive division. The P44 Pro is supposed to be a more reliable and cheaper competitor to the Samsung 990 pro...but that unit is also not doing so hot w/ the memory downturn/post-covid correction
Post reply on HN