WD Black is the performance branch of the flash business that Western Digital spun out into an independent SanDisk in 2025. Nothing about the drives themselves changed hands in a way that affects a buyer, but the badge is changing: at CES 2026 SanDisk announced that WD Black and WD Blue are being folded into one SANDISK Optimus identity, with the gaming line becoming Optimus GX and the flagship tier Optimus GX PRO. Both names sit on shelves while the changeover works through the channel.

Inside the range, the meaningful split is the controller rather than the badge. The Gen 5 flagship, the SN8100, reads at up to roughly 14,900MB/s and needs a slot wired for PCIe 5.0 to get anywhere near it. The SN850X remains the Gen 4 drive with a full DRAM cache, which is why it holds write speed through long transfers and why its heatsinked version suits a console bay. Below those sit DRAM-less designs, the SN7100 and SN770, which lean on Host Memory Buffer and trade sustained write performance for lower cost and cooler running.

Match the drive to the slot rather than to the marketing tier, because a Gen 5 unit in a Gen 4 slot simply runs at Gen 4 speeds, and most boards wire only their top M.2 position for PCIe 5.0. Evetech carries the range with local warranty handling and dispatches from Centurion, reaching Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban in 1 to 3 business days.