It's the end of an era for PS5 SSDs as the best in the business withdraws

(Image credit: Western Digital)

published 12 March 2025

Quick Summary

Western Digital has announced that it is separating from sister firm SanDisk, with the latter to make NAND products – including SSDs – exclusively.

Where that leaves the WD_Black brand is still not clear, but it could spell the end for our favourite PS5 SSD card.

Our choice of the best PS5 SSD you can buy today might soon disappear from shelves. Its maker, Western Digital, has announced a withdrawal from the SSD business.

The WD_Black SN850X is the card I use in my own PS5 Pro and is not only a sound choice for transfer rates and stability, it's one of the best-looking PlayStation-compatible M.2 NVMe cards out there.

Not that you'll see it when it's hidden inside a PS5, but you get the idea.

There's also an Xbox Series X/S expansion card sold under the WD_Black brand, and that's likely to be phased out too.

This is because Western Digital and its sister brand SanDisk have been more definitively split, with WD retaining the HDD side of the business and SanDisk taking over all NAND manufacturing and operations. That includes SSDs.

Of course, the SN850X and the officially-licensed PlayStation version, the SN850P, may continue under the SanDisk moniker in future. Or we'll get different cards with even higher spec. But it'll be a shame if the hardcore gamer-centric heatsink design is ditched.

It's also more than likely that there's still plenty of WD_Black stock out there to get hold of in the meantime. And prices for SSD cards have plummeted in recent times.

There are plenty of decent rivals too, including Samsung with its 990 Pro. Still, it's a shame to see a brand that has become so synonymous with gaming storage trundle off into the sunset.

We'll more than likely get external drives from it in the future, but for console gamers, that's not quite the same.

Rik is T3’s news editor, which means he looks after the news team and the up-to-the-minute coverage of all the hottest gadgets and products you’ll definitely want to read about. And, with more than 35 years of experience in tech and entertainment journalism, including editing and writing for numerous websites, magazines, and newspapers, he’s always got an eye on the next big thing.

Rik also has extensive knowledge of AV, TV streaming and smart home kit, plus just about everything to do with games since the late 80s. Prior to T3, he spent 13 years at Pocket-lint heading up its news team, and was a TV producer and presenter on such shows as Channel 4's GamesMaster, plus Sky's Games World, Game Over, and Virtual World of Sport.