I decided to open a case with support to get some clarification - unfortunately I’m not left more confused. Here is their response:
“We have discussed your case and would like to inform you because of compatibility issue in windows 8 the drive was not showing as fixed disk, so from now onwards all new flash drive will show as removable disk in windows 8.”
This seems to contradict their support article which says all new drives will be configured in Fixed Disk mode. Did SanDisk reverse their decision
