Hot off the news that the long-running plan to merge with Kioxia has ground to a halt yet again, Western Digital’s board of directors has approved a plan to split the company up. Its NAND flash and hard drive divisions will become entirely independent public companies, pending final board approval and other regulations.

Western Digital, or just WD as a brand name, has been around in the world of technology for 53 years and these days it’s best known for its self-titled SSDs and HDDs, as well as SanDisk mobile storage. In the NAND flash world, it’s the fourth largest supplier of such chips, behind Samsung, Kioxia (formerly Toshiba Memory Corporation), and SK Hynix.

To make SSDs and tiny flash cards, Western Digital uses manufacturing plants owned by Kioxia, and the two have w…