Western Digital Splits In Two As Sandisk Reemerges

As the firm splits into two public companies, the Western Digital name remains with the hard drive business, while the new flash storage and memory business brings the Sandisk name back into play nine years after Western Digital acquired Sandisk.

Storage media heavyweight Western Digital Monday said it has completed its previously announced move to split itself into two separate companies.

Starting Monday, the company’s hard drive-focused business will continue to use the Western Digital name and keep the company’s WDC stock ticker name.

The company’s flash memory and SSD business now goes under the Sandisk name and is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market with the ticker symbol SNDK.

Sandisk, in an investor presentation from earlier this year, claims to have a 25 percent share of the client SSD market, which includes performance, mainstream, and value SSDs, as well as SSDs for handheld devices and Xbox and PlayStation gaming consoles. It also produces flash storage for IoT and automative businesses, as well as a wide range of flash storage for data center and AI data lake requirements.

Sandisk also continues a long-term joint venture with Kioxia under which the two jointly own a flash memory fabrication business.

Sandisk for its first fiscal quarter 2025 reported pro forma revenue of $1.88 billion, a GAAP net loss of $172 million, and adjusted non-GAAP EBITDA of $400 million.

With the split comes a change in the executive leadership.

David Goeckeler, who served as Western Digital CEO since March of 2020, as of Monday is the CEO of Sandisk. Goeckeler previously spent 7.5 years at Cisco.

Irving Tan as of Monday is now Western Digital’s CEO. Tan joined Western Digital in Singapore three years ago where he served as executive vice president of global operations. Tan previously spent over 13 years at Cisco and left that company as chairman of the company’s Asia-Pacific, Japan, and China business.

While Sandisk as of Monday is the newest storage startup with its separation from Western Digital, the company is technically not new. Western Digital in 2015 acquired Sandisk in a cash and stock deal worth $19 billion.

Sandisk was not Western Digital’s only flash storage and memory acquisition. The company in 2017 acquired Tegile Systems, a developer of flash and hybrid storage systems. Western Digital in 2019 sold the Tegile business, then known as IntelliFlash, to DDN.

In 2013, Western Digital acquired STEC, a developer of enterprise-class SSDs. Western Digital that year also acquired Virident Systems, a developer of flash-based server storage technology, as well as VeloBit, a developer of SSD caching software. In 2009, Western Digital also acquired SiliconSystems, a developer of industrial SSD technologies.

Sandisk did not respond to a CRN request for further information by press time.

Western Digital told CRN in an emailed request for more information that Tan officially took over as Western Digital's CEO at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, Feb.21. Western Digital maintains an equity stake in SanDisk.

The reason for the split into two companies was to position each entity “to execute innovative technology and product development, capitalize on unique growth opportunities, and extend respective market leadership positions,” the company told CRN

Tan, in a blog post dated Feb. 22, said that he sees massive opportunities in the hard drive business.

“As AI accelerates and impacts industries around the world, and as companies generate and store more data, HDD exabyte shipments are expected to increase. In addition, much of the data stored by cloud service providers, such as native cloud application data, AI data lakes, media, and machine learning data, runs on HDDs,” he wrote.

Western Digital now has over 40,000 employees working in 22 countries to help build storage systems for the future.

“Our differentiated portfolio of scalable capacity ensures that our customers have expanding capacity points to achieve maximum value today, particularly as the industry moves to HAMR technology. This is how we ship millions of industry-leading ePMR and UltraSMR HDDs today, while simultaneously testing our HAMR technology with two hyperscale customers. Our ultimate plan is to deliver HAMR when it reaches economic crossover for everyone,” he wrote.

Goeckeler said in a prepared statement that the separation from Western Digital is a new chapter for Sandisk.

“Everything starts with innovation and NAND is an incredible enabler. Because we operate in strong and growing markets, there is a tremendous opportunity to expand our role as a globally leading Flash (sic) memory innovator. The new Sandisk is poised to shape and transform the digital world we live in, and we remain focused on leveraging our strengths to drive long-term growth for our company and shareholders,” he said.