[CES 2026] New Sandisk Optimus Brand Officially Supersedes Existing WD_BLACK & WD Blue SSDs

Meet Sandisk Optimus – the new brand name for Sandisk’s existing internal SSD products inherited from Western Digital, since its separation from the HDD storage maker last year. As announced in CES 2026, Sandisk now begins to transition its existing WD Blue and WD_BLACK SSDs with a unified branding, under Optimus, Optimus GX, and Optimus GX PRO naming.

New Sandisk Optimus Name, Same WD SSDs

Under new naming rules, Sandisk Optimus series is positioned for general performance use, replacing formerly WD Blue products like the WD Blue SN5100 with the new name, Sandisk Optimus 5100. The Sandisk Optimus GX series targets gaming systems and succeeds products formerly branded as WD_BLACK, though this is further split into PRO (SN8100 & SN850X, rebranded as Optimus GX PRO 8100 & Optimus GX PRO 850X) and non-PRO (SN7100, now Optimus GX 7100) models to further differentiate their performance tiers.

Naturally, product packaging and visuals will be updated with Sandisk’s own design language, but all hardware stays as-is – meaning, whatever reviews or assessments you have read on existing WD Blue and WD_BLACK products will continue to be applicable to these rebranded equivalents. Sandisk says products with updated branding are expected to be available through selected retailers worldwide in the first half of 2026.

Besides rebranded WD hardware, Sandisk also introduces its first “native” Optimus model called the Optimus GX 7100M, which is a M.2 2230 model available in 1TB and 2TB capacities, offering speeds up to 7,250MB/s in sequential read and 6,900MB/s in sequential write. Based on its naming, this new model likely shares similar hardware as the Optimus GX 7100, which as we mentioned earlier, was known as WD_BLACK SN7100 before the rebranding efforts.

Pokdepinion: The new naming is more straightforward.