Stefan Mileschin

Western Digital's lineup of direct-attached storage (DAS) products targets a range of markets and form-factors. After the acquisition of HGST / G-Technology and SanDisk, the company now offers similar products under multiple brand names. Portable bus-powered SSDs are an example. Subtle differences in the feature sets of the products enhance their appeal to the brand's target market.

Late last year, the WD_Black P50 was introduced as the fastest non-Thunderbolt portable SSD in the market, thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. The branding clearly indicated that gamers were the target market. The regular WD branding is reserved for the My Passport series. We reviewed the first model in the My Passport SSD series back in 2017. It used the planar TLC-based SanDisk X400 M.2 SATA SSD internally with a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C host interface. A new version of the My Passport SSD was released the following year with a WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD using 64L 3D TLC flash. Both products were held back performance-wise by the use of a SATA SSD. Today's product launch brings NVMe into the picture for the My Passport SSD product line.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16015...n-nvme-refresh