Western Digital introduces SSD for gamers

Shot of a young gamer focused on his gamehttp://195.154.178.81/DATA/i_collage/pi/shoots/783867.jpg

Western Digital Corporation is introducing a high-performance SDD (solid state drive) that's made for gaming and 4K content.

“Today’s gaming applications require increasing capability from PCs, and this will only continue to advance,” says Western Digital devices business unit senior vice president Mark Grace.

To move immense amounts of data quickly and seamlessly, WD developed the Black 3D NVMe SSD to eliminate traditional bottlenecks.

This M.2 drive features a new NVMe (non-volatile memory express) architecture and controller that offers more advanced power management and also makes it more durable.

The drive is able to sequentially read up to 3,400 MBs (for the 1TB and 500GB model) and write up to 2,8001MBs (for the 1TB model) of data.

The company claims it has been rated for up to 500,000 random-read IOPs (for 1TB model), which is an input/output performance measurement used for hard disk drives (HDDs) and SSDs.

It comes in three capacities: 250GB (RM449), 500GB (RM799) and 1TB (RM1,599) and with a five-year limited warranty.

The Black 3D NVMe SSD is expected to be available locally by the end of this month through select Western Digital retailers, resellers and distributors.This comes just a week after Western Digital announced is shutting down its HDD (hard disk drive) manufacturing facility in Petaling Jaya, Selangor by the end 2019, after over 20 years in operation. 

Western Digital (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Managing Director Gouw Kim San says that the move is in response to the declining demand for HDDs in the long-term.

He stated Western Digital will shift its focus from HDD to SDD and NAND flash production in Malaysia, with plans to expand its SSD manufacturing plant in Penang. 

This isn’t the first time a US-based disk storage solutions company shutdown its major manufacturing facilities in Malaysia. Last year, Seagate Technology closed its factories in Penang and Negri Sembilan after over 20 years of operation in this country. Seagate also attributed the closures to low demands of HDDs on a global scale.