Driving the Future of Storage: SanDisk

‘Readily available and reliable storage solutions, even in the most challenging environments.’

SanDisk is the third-largest manufacturer of flash memory products, including memory cards and readers, USB flash drives, and solid state drives. SanDisk has been expanding the possibilities of data storage for more than 25 years—giving businesses and consumers the peace of mind that comes from knowing their data is readily available and reliable, even in the most challenging environments. Its products are used in the world’s leading-edge data centers, embedded in game-changing smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and entrusted by consumers around the world. SanDisk was founded in 1988 and is headquartered at Milpitas, California with offices all over the U.S., Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

SanDisk, a $7 billion global company, has grown into a global brand with over 8,500 employees worldwide, a market cap of over $20 billion, and one of the strongest storage technology portfolios in the industry with over 5,000 patents.

In March 2015, SanDisk introduced InfiniFlash, establishing a new product category that IDC refers to as Big Data Flash, which offers compelling performance and cost metrics for the enterprise market. This is a major event in the storage industry that will enable the use of flash technology for a whole range of application environments that until now have not been able to cost justify flash use, effectively delivering not only better performance but also the secondary economic benefits of flash to hyperscale environments.

SanDisk’s close relationships with hyperscale, 3rd Platform computing customers have contributed significantly to the InfiniFlash project. Requirements from end users were clear: Hyperscale computing needed performance on demand, delivered consistently where needed regardless of the requirements of other workloads; high capacity and density in a scale-out architecture; low acquisition and operating costs at scale; simplicity of deployment and administration; and enterprise-class availability, reliability, and manageability. All parties involved, including both end users and SanDisk engineers, knew that a product that met this definition would be unique in the storage industry. In 2016, SanDisk was acquired by hard drive manufacturer Western Digital in a US$19 billion deal.

Expanding the Possibilities of Storage

For more than 27 years, SanDisk has been creating solutions that have helped reduce the cost of flash memory by 50,000 times, while increasing capacity by 30,000 times. Every day, millions of people count on the performance, quality, and reliability of SanDisk products to preserve their most precious documents and memories. From a three-person start-up in Silicon Valley to a global brand with over 8,000 employees, SanDisk has maintained a consistent commitment to advancing technologies and anticipating its customers’ needs.

Today, SanDisk’s storage products can be found in many of the world’s leading data centers, in your favorite mobile devices and electronic products, and at hundreds of thousands of retail stores around the world. The company is consistently recognized as a global innovator; it holds more than 5,000 patents worldwide. With ongoing research into 3-D memory and advances that increase capacities and make new devices possible, SanDisk transforms the industry every day.

As a vertically-integrated storage solution company, SanDisk is able to quickly deliver innovative, high-quality solutions with less time from research to realization. From mobile devices to data centers, SanDisk delivers the peace of mind that data is readily available and reliable, even in the most challenging environments. The company’s pioneering technology is used by top electronics companies and can be found in enterprise data centers worldwide, so consumers can be confident their important data is at their fingertips.

The SanDisk Advantage for Consumers

From solid-state drives and removable storage cards to USB drives and MP3 players, SanDisk’s storage solutions provide outstanding speed, performance, and reliability. The company’s rigorous quality control and first-class engineering teams deliver products you can trust with your precious data. SanDisk makes it easy to get the support you need from our robust web resources and knowledgeable service agents.

Home Solutions from SanDisk: Trust Your Memories to SanDisk

Whatever your story, SanDisk helps you tell it. From capturing a special moment to sharing your favorite songs or movie, you can count on SanDisk. With SanDisk mobile memory products, you can easily free up or expand the space on your phone. Creating the memories is up to you.

• Capacity for storing high-resolution media, music or work and personal files.
• WiFi, Type-C and even multiple connectors to let you more easily upload files or share between different types of devices.
• Get more out of your phone or tablet: mobile memory lets you add capacity to portable devices or offload files so you don’t have to worry about limits.

SanDisk realized that everyone is different and has separate requirements. That’s why it has created a complete portfolio of solutions. Small and lightweight? Storage that lets you transfer files from a PC to a smartphone? Stream videos to different devices at once? SanDisk’s mobile storage range of products has got you covered.

Whether you use a phone, a DSLR, if you are shooting video, still images or both, you can simply use memory cards and readers from SanDisk to give you the reliability, performance and capacity you need to tell your story. With a variety of drives to suit every need and style, SanDisk’s multiple interfaces present you with dependable storage options so you can transfer photos, music and other files between computers, phones, tablets and intelligent devices.

Whether you’re a gamer, a graphic artist, or simply want a better online experience, SanDisk has the drive for you. SanDisk’s solid state drives change what you can expect from laptops and desktops. SanDisk’s long line of SSD drives have longer battery life, lower energy consumption, no moving parts for greater reliability and the best part is that - SSDs are quiet.

Whether you’re addicted to audiobooks or depend on your music to help power you through your workout, our selection of media players is tuned into your needs. Not only are SanDisk’s media players compact and lightweight, you get exceptional sound quality, expansive capacities and expandable memory - so you can include all your favourite songs and take your music anywhere.

Business Solutions from SanDisk: Transforming the way businesses leverage data

Data is at the heart of everything you do. SanDisk’s innovative flash storage solutions give everyone, from small businesses to the most advanced data centers, the power to think big.

Flash accelerates the flow of data so businesses can get more out of their technology. Flash-transformed data centers are built with fewer servers; fewer storage systems, less software and less energy while delivering better performance, scalability and reliability.

Flash as a technology will transform storage in the datacenter, and there is a good chance that we’ll see a future evolution of secondary storage architectures from disk to flash. Big Data Flash addresses key 3rd Platform computing requirements for access and data movement performance while promising to lower TCO and improve secondary storage platform reliability.

Designed for Big Data - INFINIFLASH™ Platform: The InfiniFlash platform delivers 50x the performance, 5x the density, and 4x the reliability of traditional hard disk drive (HDD) arrays while consuming 80% less energy. With InfiniFlash, you can get the most out of your data center and give your customers experiences and services never before thought possible.

Designed for use with Web-scale applications, InfiniFlash also includes development libraries for direct application integration, enabling advanced functions like triggers, message passing, and in situ data transformations. Although InfiniFlash can be used off-the-shelf at first release with block- or object-based applications, an included SDK enables customers to optimize their applications for use with InfiniFlash to obtain even better performance, efficiency, and TCO benefits if so desired. S3/Swift access is supported for object storage and iSCSI for block storage at first release, with CIFS/NFS support scheduled for a follow-on release. InfiniFlash also includes a command line interface and a RESTful API for monitoring and managing InfiniFlash enclosures, giving customers a path to easily integrate it with existing datacenter monitoring, management, and automation solutions.

SanDisk’s flash technology expertise gives the company advantages in introducing this technology, and the enterprise expertise it has developed over the past 12–18 months is augmenting that advantage. In introducing the first product entry in this category, SanDisk has demonstrated its capability for innovation, but there are other functional and go-to-market considerations to firmly establish its product with customers that must be addressed in the near term as this market develops. Still, at this point, SanDisk is clearly a big step ahead of the competition with this introduction with a compelling technology that end users need.

Advanced Storage that matches your imagination: OEM Design

SanDisk technology helps designers and manufacturers create breakthrough products.  The world’s leading OEMs and designers rely on SanDisk storage solutions to create groundbreaking products for consumers and businesses everywhere. SanDisk embedded and removable storage solutions deliver the responsiveness, efficiency and capacity required by today’s intelligent devices.

Meet the Master

Stephen D. Milligan, CEO, Western Digital Corporation (Parent company)

Steve Milligan re-joined Western Digital as president in March 2012 and was appointed chief executive officer effective January 2, 2013. Immediately prior to returning to Western Digital, Milligan was president and chief executive officer of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST). During his tenure, Milligan led Hitachi GST through a financial and operational turnaround culminating in Western Digital’s acquisition of Hitachi GST in March 2012.

Prior to joining Hitachi GST in 2007, Milligan was Western Digital’s senior vice president and chief financial officer. He originally joined Western Digital in 2002 as vice president, finance.

Milligan previously was with Dell and Price Waterhouse. He traces his computer industry knowledge to Dell and his hard disk drive roots to his 12 years at Price Waterhouse, where his responsibilities included auditing IBM’s hard disk drive business. Milligan serves on the board of directors of Ross Stores, Inc. Steve Milligan holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Ohio State University.

“Our pioneering technology is used by top electronics companies and can be found in enterprise data centers worldwide, so consumers can  be confident their important data is at their fingertips.”