Storage company Western Digital (WD) introduced its Serial ATA (SATA) client solid state drives (SSDs) to the SA market last week.
The WD Blue and WD Green SSD ranges are the first of a series which will include more advanced Black and Gold ranges.
WD's ability to offer own-branded SATA drives for the first time is due to its acquisition of flash memory vendor SanDisk in 2015, according to Khwaja Saifuddin, WD senior sales director for South Asia, Middle East and Africa.
At the time of the US launch in October last year, WD said the SSDs came as a result of "significant demand" from resellers and customers for a broad set of flash drives.
Saifuddin says the Blue and Green SDDs are designed for building new PC systems and implementing performance upgrades. "They have near-maximum speed for SATA drives, along with best-in-class endurance and mean time to failure - which is the length of time a device is expected to last in operation and a great indicator of technology reliability."
Kalvin Subbadu, WD sales manager of component products SADC region, says the entry-level Green drive is aimed at enhancing the lifecycle and supplementing the performance of an aging laptop or desktop, while the more capable Blue drive targets DIY computing enthusiasts, gamers and content creators.
The WD Green SSD is available in either 120GB or 240GB, with a recommended retail price starting from R799. The WD Blue SSD has 250GB, 500GB and 1TB varieties, starting from of R1 429.
The packages include free WD SSD dashboard software, which enables users to conduct continuous performance and capacity monitoring.
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