While this happens on TVs (and other consumer goods, mattresses is another example of different SKUs for different retailers), this is not common at all for performance sensitive components in PC hardware industry.
Making different SKUs (with same generic marketing name) can happen (which WD did NOT do here) for good reasons, but most of the time you get better performance out of it.
What WD did is really shameful and very much not the norm in this industry.
Making different SKUs (with same generic marketing name) can happen (which WD did NOT do here) for good reasons, but most of the time you get better performance out of it.
What WD did is really shameful and very much not the norm in this industry.