Sandisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) on Tuesday unveiled a major rebranding of its popular WD_Black solid-state drive (SSD) family at the CES 2026 tech show, renaming the lineup under a new brand called Sandisk Optimus.
The announcement sent Sandisk shares soaring more than 23% in early trading.
The new Optimus brand consolidates Sandisk’s SSD offerings under three tiers: Optimus, Optimus GX, and Optimus GX Pro. Regular Optimus drives replace the WD_BLUE line, while Optimus GX succeeds the WD_BLACK SN7100 NVMe SSD. The top-tier GX Pro series, which includes the rebranded WD_BLACK SN8100 NVMe SSD, features PCIe 5.0 NVM M.2 SSDs with read speeds up to 14.9 GB/s and write speeds up to 14 GB/s, available in 2 TB and 4 TB capacities.
Sandisk said the updated branding retains part numbers from the previous WD SSDs to maintain familiarity with the gaming community, which has long valued WD_BLUE for cost-effective storage and WD_BLACK for high performance.
The company also used CES to showcase other storage products, including CFexpress and microSD cards of various capacities, as well as USB flash drives created in partnership with Crayola that resemble crayons.
According to Sandisk, the Optimus GX Pro series represents the flagship tier of the brand, targeting developers, professionals, and gamers building AI PCs, workstations, or high-end gaming rigs. GX Pro products include the rebranded SN8100, marketed as the Optimus GX Pro 8100, and the WD Black SN850X, now Optimus GX Pro 850X.
The new Optimus drives are expected to reach select retailers worldwide in the first half of 2026.