Joel Y.
Swapping HHD for SSD Western Digital / SanDisk
Purchased Western Digital SSD drive to replace existing HDD in my laptop. Choose WD as it indicated free cloning software was available. Purchased disk enclosure which allows the drive to be accessed via USB port. Downloaded and installed the software (Acronis). The software would only work if it detected a WD drive present. The software failed to see the USB drive as being Western Digital. Googled the problem and discovered behavior had been encountered by numerous other users. Also found “To solve this, you can contact WD support to download a special .exe file.”. Accessed WD website for support and to get the executable. Webpage indicated that as of February 2025 the Western Digital SSD drives are now supported by SanDisk. Opened support case on SanDisk website “Acronis software does not see the WD Blue SA510 connected using USB enclosure.". Response from SanDisk included links to download and install Acronis software (should have been apparent this had already been done). The email response included “Also, SanDisk does not recommend connecting the internal SSD with an enclosure as we recommend connecting the internal SSD with the Motherboard directly”. The response is a bit absurd given the intent is to migrate from an existing HHD drive to the new SSD. The point of purchasing a drive that comes with cloning software should have made this evident. Looked SanDisk up on trustpilot.com to see if the support (or rather lack thereof) was common. They had 1.6 rating on a 5-star scale. Might be that those satisfied with SanDisk support are not as likely to enter a review. I was able to complete the migration using different cloning software however was disappointed with SanDisk support.




