Security News > 2021 > August > Western Digital confirms speed crippling SN550 SSD flash change
Western Digital has confirmed that it changed the NAND flash memory in one of its most popular M.2 NVMe SSD models, the WD Blue SN550, which crippled writing speeds according to several reports, leading to a 50% performance hit.
The company says that, in the future, it will also introduce a new model number when making any hardware changes to its products that impact performance.
Western Digital added that, although it didn't inform customers of this change, it updated the product data sheet.
"In June 2021, we replaced the NAND in the WD Blue SN550 NVMe SSD and updated the firmware," a Western Digital spokesperson told BleepingComputer.
"At the time, we updated the product data sheet. For greater transparency going forward, if we make a change to an existing internal SSD, we commit to introducing a new model number whenever any related published specifications are impacted."
The first to report that Western Digital swapped the high-performance flash memory in its Blue SN550 M.2 NVMe SSDs with a lower quality one without letting its customers know was the Chinese tech news site Expreview.