- Hey guys, Andru Edwards here back
at CES with Laurie, how're you doing today?
- I'm well, thank you.
- So today we're gonna be talking about some new products.
- Yep.
- We're here in the Western Digital Suite,
we've got some new WD hardware to talk about.
- Yes we do.
- What do you guys have going on this year?
- So today, we're announcing our WD BLACK PCIe SSD product.
- [Andru] Okay.
- It's our first PCIe-based SSD,
so WD BLACK PCIe SSD gives us a great performance boost
over any SATA-based SSD, more than three times faster.
What WD BLACK also does is it extends our portfolio
of WD based SSDs.
You remember the WD BLUE and the WD GREEN
that launched this past October.
So the WD BLACK really gives us a high performing SSD
for gamers, for VR developers, for content creation,
anything where performance, speed, faster load time,
faster boot-up, faster shutdown is important.
- Okay, and I noticed actually when I was looking
at the products over there, you have
the WD BLACK PCIe M.2 module,
and you also had M.2 for BLUE and GREEN,
so you have three different PCIe performance speeds
or products that you're talking about here at CES?
- Ah, I see where you're going.
So, you bring up a good point, where this is an M.2.
- Right, let me hold that.
- And this is our WD BLUE.
- Right, exactly.
- This is also an M.2 and this is our WD BLACK.
Now, a lot of people think that with the M.2,
it is automatically a PCIe drive.
But the M.2 is really just the shape, it's very very thin
as you can see, form factor,
it's really the shape of the SSD,
like a two and a half inch drive.
So if you think of an M.2 as a two and a half inch drive,
you can have a SATA version, or a PCIe version.
- Okay, so what you're implying there is that the speed
of the WD BLUE M.2 SSD is similar
to the larger 2.5 inch version.
- Correct, it is a SATA drive
and so it's based on the SATA interface
and the speeds that a SATA drive can provide.
- Okay, so if you're looking for an SSD
just to kind of speed up your system,
and if you have a M.2 slot,
this is probably what you're gonna go for.
- Exactly.
- For the higher end, performance based model,
then it's the WD BLACK we're talking about.
- Exactly, and you know our customers, our WD customers,
are very loyal to us and they have been asking,
from the hard-drive side, when we were going to come out
with an SSD, so WD BLUE was the first
that we launched back in October,
and it's gotten really great reception and feedback
from our customers, who then have of course said,
okay, great, we've got a WD BLUE SSD,
when's PCIe coming out?
And so this is why we're really proud
to put out our WD BLACK PCIe SSD today.
- So just so people don't get too excited
and start rushing Amazon today,
because I know it's not coming out today,
when can people expect
to see WD BLACK available for purchase?
- We expect to see WD BLACK available for purchase
in the first half of 2017.
So we went through a lot of functional integrity testing
by our WD labs, to make sure that our WD BLACK is compatible
and interoperable with the broad number of systems
that are out there and in addition to that,
because PCIe is a fairly new standard that the industry
is transitioning to, we also worked with PC manufacturers,
with motherboard manufacturers, to test and validate
the WD BLACK PCIe SSD.
So for all the DIY guys that are out there,
they can buy and be reassured that when they buy
that particular motherboard with our WD BLACK PCIe,
they know that the build will go as smoothly as possible.
- Okay, and this is actually a good point to bring up,
you can't just go out and buy, whether it's this
or any other M.2 drive, you wanna make sure you have
the port on your motherboard and then secondly,
after that, make sure that the drive is even compatible
with that motherboard, even if you have the port on there.
- Yes.
- So you guys have a tool, I assume on your website,
where people can go.
- Yes, and the compatibility guide will give consumers
a really great list of the motherboards and the PC systems
that are compatible with the WD BLACK PCIe SSD.
- So aside from using that compatibility tool,
once you actually install this, you guys actually have tools
that help people move their data over, right?
- Exactly.
So there are two free downloadable tools that we offer
with the WD BLACK PCIe SSD,
with actually all of our WD SSDs.
- Okay
- The first one is the WD Dashboard, and what that is,
number one it's downloadable for free on the WD site,
and number two it allows you to monitor the health
of your SSD, so you can track easy things like
how full is your drive,
how much lifespan is left in your drive,
what the firmware is, if you have SMART attributes
that you want to change or, you know,
adjust, you can do that.
It also, for PCIe especially,
it will give you the temperature of your SSD,
so you can see how high or low your PCIe SSD is running.
The second thing that we offer, again for free,
downloadable at our WD.com site,
is Acronis WD Edition Cloning software.
Once you put an SSD into your system,
of course you want to clone all your data.
- [Andru] Yeah, definitely.
- So both Acronis WD Edition and the WD SSD Dashboard
are available to consumers for free.
- Okay, and so we'll be checking out, actually,
the WD BLACK SSD, I don't have to wait
until the end of the first half of 2017,
you guys are letting me leave here with one of these,
just for testing, but I'm gonna put it to the test
and see how it stacks up to other PCIe SSDs out there.
- Great.
- And it sounds like you guys are up for that challenge.
- We are.
- So stay tuned, in a few days I'll have that video up,
but Laurie thanks so much.
- Thank you.
- For joining me, letting me come up here
into the Western Digital Suite.
That was your look at the new WD SSD hardware,
I'll have more for you from CES, stay tuned.
- Thanks.
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