Play faster, work smarter. FireCuda drives meld the advanced SSD technology with a standard hard drive for a compact blend of capacity and faster speeds. FireCuda blends SSD technology and a standard HDD, resulting in performance similar to an SSD but with all the capacity you expect from an HDD. It's the perfect upgrade for gamers, creative professionals and PC enthusiasts. With a spacious storage, FireCuda makes deleting games and files - to free up disk space - a thing of the past. It is perfect for gamers and creative professionals who want it all, now.
Play faster, work smarter. FireCuda drives meld the advanced SSD technology with a standard hard drive for a compact blend of capacity and faster speeds. FireCuda blends SSD technology and a standard HDD, resulting in performance similar to an SSD but with all the capacity you expect from an HDD. It's the perfect upgrade for gamers, creative professionals and PC enthusiasts. With a spacious storage, FireCuda makes deleting games and files - to free up disk space - a thing of the past. It is perfect for gamers and creative professionals who want it all, now.
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The lowest price for Seagate ST500LX025 2.5 (6.35 cm) Internal HDD 500 GB FireCuda Bulk SATA III right now is $36.45 at eBay.com.au.
The all-time low was $36.34 on 7 May 2026. That's the lowest price we've ever tracked — a great time to buy.
Prices last updated 12 May 2026.
Seagate ST500LX025 2.5 (6.35 cm) Internal HDD 500 GB FireCuda Bulk SATA III
Play faster, work smarter. FireCuda drives meld the advanced SSD technology with a standard hard drive for a compact blend of capacity and faster speeds. FireCuda blends SSD technology and a standard HDD, resulting in performance similar to an SSD but with all the capacity you expect from an HDD. It's the perfect upgrade for gamers, creative professionals and PC enthusiasts. With a spacious storage, FireCuda makes deleting games and files - to free up disk space - a thing of the past. It is perfect for gamers and creative professionals who want it all, now.
Play faster, work smarter. FireCuda drives meld the advanced SSD technology with a standard hard drive for a compact blend of capacity and faster speeds. FireCuda blends SSD technology and a standard HDD, resulting in performance similar to an SSD but with all the capacity you expect from an HDD. It's the perfect upgrade for gamers, creative professionals and PC enthusiasts. With a spacious storage, FireCuda makes deleting games and files - to free up disk space - a thing of the past. It is perfect for gamers and creative professionals who want it all, now.
Last updated at 12/05/2026 22:56:14
Seagate Firecuda 500gb 2.5" Sshd Sata St500lx025 6gb/s Solid State
Free delivery
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originally posted on neweggbusiness.com
I tested write-throughput of the drive by transferring 100GB of large media files to the drive from a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in 25GB chunks. The first 8GB or so of each data chunk transferred at a rate of ~480MB/s, which is obviously faster than any individual purely mechanical drive. It seems that the 8GB SSD portion of the drive can be used as a buffer for incoming data, as once 8GB had been transferred to the drive the rate slowed down substantially to ~200MB/s. That rate was fairly consistent so I believe this clearly unveils the write-throughput limitation of the mechanical portions of the drive, and while it's not the fastest mechanical drive it's certainly pretty good. As the drive became more saturated the transfer rate would occasionally stumble to ~100MB/s, ... MoreI tested write-throughput of the drive by transferring 100GB of large media files to the drive from a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in 25GB chunks. The first 8GB or so of each data chunk transferred at a rate of ~480MB/s, which is obviously faster than any individual purely mechanical drive. It seems that the 8GB SSD portion of the drive can be used as a buffer for incoming data, as once 8GB had been transferred to the drive the rate slowed down substantially to ~200MB/s. That rate was fairly consistent so I believe this clearly unveils the write-throughput limitation of the mechanical portions of the drive, and while it's not the fastest mechanical drive it's certainly pretty good. As the drive became more saturated the transfer rate would occasionally stumble to ~100MB/s, or even a bit lower, but it would only dip that low for a few moments before it would jump back up to ~200MB/s where it remained fairly consistent for minutes at a time. Write-throughput of smaller files is much more erratic, as should be expected. When transferring 20GB of pictures and text documents the transfer rate started at a similar rate as before, ~480MB/s. Once the first 8GB of files had been transferred the rate plummeted. And instead of a nearly constant 200MB/s, the rate jumped around quite a bit, generally staying between 100-150MB/s. This result is not surprising as small files represent more individual read/write operations per second, which is a weak point of any mechanical drive. Overall performance, even when reaching mechanical limitations is still very respectable with this drive. The write-throughput advantage to this design should be obvious at this point. If you are writing less than 8GB of data to the drive at a time you can expect SSD write-performance. Larger amounts of data will display the performance limitations of the design, but those limitations aren't bad either when compared with other mechanical drives. I tested read-throughput of the drive by transferring the same 100GB of large media files and 20GB of small files from the drive to a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. The drive achieves a remarkably consistent 190-204MB/s while transferring the large files; the drive never once strayed beyond that range. The small files, again, were much more erratic - resulting in an overall average of ~150MB/s. Occasionally transfer rates were as low as 80MB/s and as fast as 240MB/s. In addition to being used as a write-buffer, the SSD portion of the drive is used to cache files that are in use at the time. (or are commonly used/recently accessed, as I listed in the 'Pros' section) Occasionally files that I have opened recently will transfer particularly fast (I've seen some as fast as 700MB/s). This is particularly useful for games or the OS as those drive performance will increase with those files as you access those files more often. Now, for the recommendation: If you have essentially a limitless budget for your PC needs then this drive is not for you. You should be using pure SSD's for your OS and apps and pure reliable HDD's for your important files. If you are on a budget but would like performance and capacity for your OS and games/programs then you should give this drive a chance. However, I would recommend a separate more reliable drive for important data - or at least a backup drive. If you are in this category then this drive should be about perfect for you. Overall I'm very pleased with it.
originally posted on neweggbusiness.com
I purchased the Seagate Firecuda 2TB 2.5" SSHD for my Xbox One S. I already swapped it out and it is working great. It feels much snappier overall and bootup / application load times seem to have improved even though it is 5400rpm like the 500gb HDD it replaced. I would have preferred a 7200rpm drive but the Xbox One S requires a 2.5" drive and it seems that 1TB is the cut off for 7200rpm 2.5" drives. That said, I figured the 8GB Flash Storage and Seagates caching implementation should more than make up for the performance difference between 5400rpm vs 7200rpm. Either way, I'm not that concerned considering it's just an Xbox One S and capacity was priority. If a 1TB drive would have been enough for me it would have been a tough choice between the Seagate Firecuda ... MoreI purchased the Seagate Firecuda 2TB 2.5" SSHD for my Xbox One S. I already swapped it out and it is working great. It feels much snappier overall and bootup / application load times seem to have improved even though it is 5400rpm like the 500gb HDD it replaced. I would have preferred a 7200rpm drive but the Xbox One S requires a 2.5" drive and it seems that 1TB is the cut off for 7200rpm 2.5" drives. That said, I figured the 8GB Flash Storage and Seagates caching implementation should more than make up for the performance difference between 5400rpm vs 7200rpm. Either way, I'm not that concerned considering it's just an Xbox One S and capacity was priority. If a 1TB drive would have been enough for me it would have been a tough choice between the Seagate Firecuda 1TB 2.5" SSHD and the HGST 1TB 7200rpm 2.5" HDD. It's too bad Seagate couldn't have pulled off 7200rpm in the 2.5" Firecuda like they did in the 3.5" Firecuda. On a side note, upgrading the Xbox One S internal hard drive is not for the faint of heart. The warranty sticker has to be removed so it voids your warranty. All you need is two USB Flash Drives (One for Clonezilla ISO and one for Linux Ubuntu ISO) Run the Clonezilla bootable USB and clone the Stock HDD to your New HDD. Then run the Ubuntu Bootable USB and run gparted. The extra space will be unallocated under the partitions. You have to move the bottom 3 partitions under the unallocated (one at a time starting with the very bottom going up). This will put the unallocated space under the User partition. Now you can extend the user partition and give it the extra unallocated space. After you add the unallocated space to the user partition, hit the green check mark and sit back. I recommend factory resetting the Xbox beforehand as it makes the cloning process much faster and seemless. Turn off auto on at the very least so the Xbox actually shuts down all the way beforehand. There are YouTube videos on this. Lookup XFiX, he has an awesome tutorial on how to do it!
originally posted on newegg.com
I tested this on two systems, one a 2 year old motherboard with the Intel SATA III ports (where I got mostly advertised speeds), and the system I was hoping to speed up, a 6 year old computer I use as a server. That Motherboard (the Asus) doesn’t have Intel SATAIII ports. The add-on Marvell ones used a controller that doesn’t provide a good speed. I actually saw speed improvements moving to the SATA II port over the SATA III and an Internet search showed that isn’t uncommon. In all cases, the SATA ports were in AHCI mode. All tests were done using CrystalDiskMark 5.2.1. (Non-system disk in newer computer –MSI z87-G45 Motherboard on SATA III Port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 140.6 MB/s, and the write is 128.5 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 1.640 MB/s, and ... MoreI tested this on two systems, one a 2 year old motherboard with the Intel SATA III ports (where I got mostly advertised speeds), and the system I was hoping to speed up, a 6 year old computer I use as a server. That Motherboard (the Asus) doesn’t have Intel SATAIII ports. The add-on Marvell ones used a controller that doesn’t provide a good speed. I actually saw speed improvements moving to the SATA II port over the SATA III and an Internet search showed that isn’t uncommon. In all cases, the SATA ports were in AHCI mode. All tests were done using CrystalDiskMark 5.2.1. (Non-system disk in newer computer –MSI z87-G45 Motherboard on SATA III Port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 140.6 MB/s, and the write is 128.5 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 1.640 MB/s, and the write is 1.577 MB/s. The Seq read is 139.9 MB/s, with the write being 130.7 MB/s. The 4K test is 1.408 MB/s and write is 1.538 MB/s. This is close enough that I’m willing to say that the speed it can get is as advertised (140 MB/s) Now we get to the computer I was hoping to speed up. (System Disk 5 minutes after logon on Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard on SATA II port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 22.14 MB/s, and the write is 22.88 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 0.945 MB/s, and the write is 0.224 MB/s. The Seq read is 35.23 MB/s, with the write being 6.082 MB/s. The 4K test is 0.385 MB/s and write is 0.139 MB/s. This computer has quite a few startup items (it’s a normally headless server), but this is taken 5 minutes AFTER hitting enter on the logon screen. It’s still chugging a LOT of data, with queues over 30. Trying to use the computer at this point is frustrating. It gets better after a couple of hours, and I took another test two days later. (System Disk 2 days after logon on Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard on SATA II port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 121.2 MB/s, and the write is 116.1 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 0.983 MB/s, and the write is 1.353 MB/s. The Seq read is 121.8 MB/s, with the write being 118.1 MB/s. The 4K test is 0.288 MB/s and write is 1.271 MB/s. Doing things with it in this state still sends queue length over 15 occasionally, and still feels sluggish. Pure benchmarks don’t tell the whole story for anything. Yes, the benchmark scores 5 minutes after boot is bad; however, if the performance of the system were good at that point, then I’d be happy with it. Good speeds when it’s not being used isn’t all that useful. While the price is good, I’d rather have a 7200 RPM HDD. The 8 GB Flash isn’t enough (and the adaptive caching didn’t seem to help. After 10 reboots, there was no difference in times), and once you get onto the HDD portion, it feels incredibly slow. As a second drive, this might be ok for the money, but I don’t recommend using this for a system disk. I’d rather have a larger disk if I’m not getting the performance of a SSD, and I don’t see “middle of the road” performance out of this that the flash cache supposedly provides, at least not on older hardware that this was supposed to speed up.
Seagate Firecuda 500gb 2.5" Sshd Sata St500lx025 6gb/s Solid State
Free delivery
Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a small commission for purchases made through this link at no extra cost to you. This helps support our site. Thank you!
I tested write-throughput of the drive by transferring 100GB of large media files to the drive from a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in 25GB chunks. The first 8GB or so of each data chunk transferred at a rate of ~480MB/s, which is obviously faster than any individual purely mechanical drive. It seems that the 8GB SSD portion of the drive can be used as a buffer for incoming data, as once 8GB had been transferred to the drive the rate slowed down substantially to ~200MB/s. That rate was fairly consistent so I believe this clearly unveils the write-throughput limitation of the mechanical portions of the drive, and while it's not the fastest mechanical drive it's certainly pretty good. As the drive became more saturated the transfer rate would occasionally stumble to ~100MB/s, ... MoreI tested write-throughput of the drive by transferring 100GB of large media files to the drive from a Samsung 850 Pro SSD in 25GB chunks. The first 8GB or so of each data chunk transferred at a rate of ~480MB/s, which is obviously faster than any individual purely mechanical drive. It seems that the 8GB SSD portion of the drive can be used as a buffer for incoming data, as once 8GB had been transferred to the drive the rate slowed down substantially to ~200MB/s. That rate was fairly consistent so I believe this clearly unveils the write-throughput limitation of the mechanical portions of the drive, and while it's not the fastest mechanical drive it's certainly pretty good. As the drive became more saturated the transfer rate would occasionally stumble to ~100MB/s, or even a bit lower, but it would only dip that low for a few moments before it would jump back up to ~200MB/s where it remained fairly consistent for minutes at a time. Write-throughput of smaller files is much more erratic, as should be expected. When transferring 20GB of pictures and text documents the transfer rate started at a similar rate as before, ~480MB/s. Once the first 8GB of files had been transferred the rate plummeted. And instead of a nearly constant 200MB/s, the rate jumped around quite a bit, generally staying between 100-150MB/s. This result is not surprising as small files represent more individual read/write operations per second, which is a weak point of any mechanical drive. Overall performance, even when reaching mechanical limitations is still very respectable with this drive. The write-throughput advantage to this design should be obvious at this point. If you are writing less than 8GB of data to the drive at a time you can expect SSD write-performance. Larger amounts of data will display the performance limitations of the design, but those limitations aren't bad either when compared with other mechanical drives. I tested read-throughput of the drive by transferring the same 100GB of large media files and 20GB of small files from the drive to a Samsung 850 Pro SSD. The drive achieves a remarkably consistent 190-204MB/s while transferring the large files; the drive never once strayed beyond that range. The small files, again, were much more erratic - resulting in an overall average of ~150MB/s. Occasionally transfer rates were as low as 80MB/s and as fast as 240MB/s. In addition to being used as a write-buffer, the SSD portion of the drive is used to cache files that are in use at the time. (or are commonly used/recently accessed, as I listed in the 'Pros' section) Occasionally files that I have opened recently will transfer particularly fast (I've seen some as fast as 700MB/s). This is particularly useful for games or the OS as those drive performance will increase with those files as you access those files more often. Now, for the recommendation: If you have essentially a limitless budget for your PC needs then this drive is not for you. You should be using pure SSD's for your OS and apps and pure reliable HDD's for your important files. If you are on a budget but would like performance and capacity for your OS and games/programs then you should give this drive a chance. However, I would recommend a separate more reliable drive for important data - or at least a backup drive. If you are in this category then this drive should be about perfect for you. Overall I'm very pleased with it.
I purchased the Seagate Firecuda 2TB 2.5" SSHD for my Xbox One S. I already swapped it out and it is working great. It feels much snappier overall and bootup / application load times seem to have improved even though it is 5400rpm like the 500gb HDD it replaced. I would have preferred a 7200rpm drive but the Xbox One S requires a 2.5" drive and it seems that 1TB is the cut off for 7200rpm 2.5" drives. That said, I figured the 8GB Flash Storage and Seagates caching implementation should more than make up for the performance difference between 5400rpm vs 7200rpm. Either way, I'm not that concerned considering it's just an Xbox One S and capacity was priority. If a 1TB drive would have been enough for me it would have been a tough choice between the Seagate Firecuda ... MoreI purchased the Seagate Firecuda 2TB 2.5" SSHD for my Xbox One S. I already swapped it out and it is working great. It feels much snappier overall and bootup / application load times seem to have improved even though it is 5400rpm like the 500gb HDD it replaced. I would have preferred a 7200rpm drive but the Xbox One S requires a 2.5" drive and it seems that 1TB is the cut off for 7200rpm 2.5" drives. That said, I figured the 8GB Flash Storage and Seagates caching implementation should more than make up for the performance difference between 5400rpm vs 7200rpm. Either way, I'm not that concerned considering it's just an Xbox One S and capacity was priority. If a 1TB drive would have been enough for me it would have been a tough choice between the Seagate Firecuda 1TB 2.5" SSHD and the HGST 1TB 7200rpm 2.5" HDD. It's too bad Seagate couldn't have pulled off 7200rpm in the 2.5" Firecuda like they did in the 3.5" Firecuda. On a side note, upgrading the Xbox One S internal hard drive is not for the faint of heart. The warranty sticker has to be removed so it voids your warranty. All you need is two USB Flash Drives (One for Clonezilla ISO and one for Linux Ubuntu ISO) Run the Clonezilla bootable USB and clone the Stock HDD to your New HDD. Then run the Ubuntu Bootable USB and run gparted. The extra space will be unallocated under the partitions. You have to move the bottom 3 partitions under the unallocated (one at a time starting with the very bottom going up). This will put the unallocated space under the User partition. Now you can extend the user partition and give it the extra unallocated space. After you add the unallocated space to the user partition, hit the green check mark and sit back. I recommend factory resetting the Xbox beforehand as it makes the cloning process much faster and seemless. Turn off auto on at the very least so the Xbox actually shuts down all the way beforehand. There are YouTube videos on this. Lookup XFiX, he has an awesome tutorial on how to do it!
I tested this on two systems, one a 2 year old motherboard with the Intel SATA III ports (where I got mostly advertised speeds), and the system I was hoping to speed up, a 6 year old computer I use as a server. That Motherboard (the Asus) doesn’t have Intel SATAIII ports. The add-on Marvell ones used a controller that doesn’t provide a good speed. I actually saw speed improvements moving to the SATA II port over the SATA III and an Internet search showed that isn’t uncommon. In all cases, the SATA ports were in AHCI mode. All tests were done using CrystalDiskMark 5.2.1. (Non-system disk in newer computer –MSI z87-G45 Motherboard on SATA III Port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 140.6 MB/s, and the write is 128.5 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 1.640 MB/s, and ... MoreI tested this on two systems, one a 2 year old motherboard with the Intel SATA III ports (where I got mostly advertised speeds), and the system I was hoping to speed up, a 6 year old computer I use as a server. That Motherboard (the Asus) doesn’t have Intel SATAIII ports. The add-on Marvell ones used a controller that doesn’t provide a good speed. I actually saw speed improvements moving to the SATA II port over the SATA III and an Internet search showed that isn’t uncommon. In all cases, the SATA ports were in AHCI mode. All tests were done using CrystalDiskMark 5.2.1. (Non-system disk in newer computer –MSI z87-G45 Motherboard on SATA III Port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 140.6 MB/s, and the write is 128.5 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 1.640 MB/s, and the write is 1.577 MB/s. The Seq read is 139.9 MB/s, with the write being 130.7 MB/s. The 4K test is 1.408 MB/s and write is 1.538 MB/s. This is close enough that I’m willing to say that the speed it can get is as advertised (140 MB/s) Now we get to the computer I was hoping to speed up. (System Disk 5 minutes after logon on Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard on SATA II port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 22.14 MB/s, and the write is 22.88 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 0.945 MB/s, and the write is 0.224 MB/s. The Seq read is 35.23 MB/s, with the write being 6.082 MB/s. The 4K test is 0.385 MB/s and write is 0.139 MB/s. This computer has quite a few startup items (it’s a normally headless server), but this is taken 5 minutes AFTER hitting enter on the logon screen. It’s still chugging a LOT of data, with queues over 30. Trying to use the computer at this point is frustrating. It gets better after a couple of hours, and I took another test two days later. (System Disk 2 days after logon on Asus Sabertooth X58 Motherboard on SATA II port in AHCI mode) The Seq Q32T1 read speed is 121.2 MB/s, and the write is 116.1 MB/s. The 4K Q32T1 is Read is 0.983 MB/s, and the write is 1.353 MB/s. The Seq read is 121.8 MB/s, with the write being 118.1 MB/s. The 4K test is 0.288 MB/s and write is 1.271 MB/s. Doing things with it in this state still sends queue length over 15 occasionally, and still feels sluggish. Pure benchmarks don’t tell the whole story for anything. Yes, the benchmark scores 5 minutes after boot is bad; however, if the performance of the system were good at that point, then I’d be happy with it. Good speeds when it’s not being used isn’t all that useful. While the price is good, I’d rather have a 7200 RPM HDD. The 8 GB Flash isn’t enough (and the adaptive caching didn’t seem to help. After 10 reboots, there was no difference in times), and once you get onto the HDD portion, it feels incredibly slow. As a second drive, this might be ok for the money, but I don’t recommend using this for a system disk. I’d rather have a larger disk if I’m not getting the performance of a SSD, and I don’t see “middle of the road” performance out of this that the flash cache supposedly provides, at least not on older hardware that this was supposed to speed up.
SSHD stands for solid state hybrid drive, this is a traditional hard disk with a small amount of solid state storage built in. The solid state storage typically holds the most accessed data and applications, allowing for faster loading times. Although gains of 3 times or more can be attained for the cached data (programs and files stored in the SSD part of the drive), general performance usually falls in line with typical mechanical HHD’s and in this case slower spinning 5400rpm drives. This drive is 2.5in and 7mm in height making it perfect as a potential upgrade for vanilla laptop HHD’s, however the spindle speed of this drive is a slow 5400rpm making random access to data outside of the 8Gb of solid state memory slow. I cloned my current laptop HHD (500gb WD ... MoreSSHD stands for solid state hybrid drive, this is a traditional hard disk with a small amount of solid state storage built in. The solid state storage typically holds the most accessed data and applications, allowing for faster loading times. Although gains of 3 times or more can be attained for the cached data (programs and files stored in the SSD part of the drive), general performance usually falls in line with typical mechanical HHD’s and in this case slower spinning 5400rpm drives. This drive is 2.5in and 7mm in height making it perfect as a potential upgrade for vanilla laptop HHD’s, however the spindle speed of this drive is a slow 5400rpm making random access to data outside of the 8Gb of solid state memory slow. I cloned my current laptop HHD (500gb WD Black 7200rpm) across to this SSHD and ran a few tests to compare using Crystal Disk. Sequential Read and writes were 132.02Mb/s and 127.06Mb/s and random read and writes were 1.49Mb/s and 1.32Mb/s (averaged out). While sequential read and writes were a little faster than the WD drive, random read and writes were slower and this makes sense as the spindle speed of this drive is 5400rpm as opposed to 7200rpm for the WD drive. After using this drive for a few days I noticed that Windows booted quicker with this drive and opening Paint Shop Pro and Outlook was also speedier with this drive than my older WD Black. The firmware on this SSHD will take some time to learn what programs and data you access often, in order to move this data to the SSD part of the drive, however this part of the drive is only 8Gb in size, so will fill up quickly if you want to install and use multiple games and storage hogging applications. I am disappointed by the 5400rpm spindle speed and this is really the only con I could find. It would be a more compelling buy if it came with a 7200rpm drive, however a 7200rpm drive would be louder and consume more power and generate more heat. This drive was designed for mobile computing where battery life was important, so I understand the requirement for a 5400rpm spindle speed. The drive was certainly quieter than my WD Black drive, unfortunately I have not really been able to determine if the SSHD had a positive effect on laptop battery use so far. This drive would be perfect for anyone looking to update storage in a laptop that is currently running a vanilla HDD. It is reasonably priced at $69 and with a 5 year warranty should last well. Just don’t expect this to be a new speed demon. If you want a much faster mobile experience then nothing will beat even the very cheapest SSD, but expect to pay at least $240 for a 1Tb SSD. Bottom line: Great value hybrid drive, with good capacity and sequential read and writes and a terrific 5 year warranty. Let down by average random read and writes from 5400rpm spindle speed (although I can understand why the 5400rpm spindle speed was chosen for this drive).
I took one egg off of my rating due to Seagate's poor warranty policy for replacing drives with re-certified drives even when the bad drive was only a month or two old. These SMR drives have slow writes when writing to the spinning disk. Thus the 8GB Flash cache helps insulate you from this slowness. My drive failed at just under 2-months of use (no longer recognized by the computer). The re-certified drive they replaced it with experiences a high number of both corrected ECC errors and seek errors as reported by its SMART data. So, i went from a practically brand-new drive to one that appears to be on its last legs. :-( Performance on this drive seems to vary immensely depending on your application. My use writes data sequentially to huge (about 1TB) pre-allocated ... MoreI took one egg off of my rating due to Seagate's poor warranty policy for replacing drives with re-certified drives even when the bad drive was only a month or two old. These SMR drives have slow writes when writing to the spinning disk. Thus the 8GB Flash cache helps insulate you from this slowness. My drive failed at just under 2-months of use (no longer recognized by the computer). The re-certified drive they replaced it with experiences a high number of both corrected ECC errors and seek errors as reported by its SMART data. So, i went from a practically brand-new drive to one that appears to be on its last legs. :-( Performance on this drive seems to vary immensely depending on your application. My use writes data sequentially to huge (about 1TB) pre-allocated files, and the transfer rate for this drive varies from a max of 100MB/s to a min of 4.5MB/s. That latter number is terribly slow for sequential writes. I personally think this drive is bad. But, Seagate says it's good as long as it's drive utility (SeaTools) says its good. And it does. Of course, that tool doesn't do any form of writing stress test.
The Seagate FireCuda is a normal 2.5” form factor mechanical hard drive that uses 8GB of NAND flash to cache the most accessed data on the drive. This helps speed the drive up over normal mechanical hard drives. This does NOT make it nearly as fast as a full SSD but the price is much lower. It also has 128 MB of cache with multi-tier caching technology (MTC). MTC technology adds various caching layers to further improve both read and write performances. NAND flash is used to store most-often-read data to increase read performance while media cache is used to merge small block writes. Since the NAND flash size is in the order of gigabytes compared to the hundreds of megabytes found on DRAM, cache hit is higher by order of 100 times. For fragmented write operations, ... MoreThe Seagate FireCuda is a normal 2.5” form factor mechanical hard drive that uses 8GB of NAND flash to cache the most accessed data on the drive. This helps speed the drive up over normal mechanical hard drives. This does NOT make it nearly as fast as a full SSD but the price is much lower. It also has 128 MB of cache with multi-tier caching technology (MTC). MTC technology adds various caching layers to further improve both read and write performances. NAND flash is used to store most-often-read data to increase read performance while media cache is used to merge small block writes. Since the NAND flash size is in the order of gigabytes compared to the hundreds of megabytes found on DRAM, cache hit is higher by order of 100 times. For fragmented write operations, media cache boosts performance as DRAM reaches its limit. Media cache can sustain a near-sequential data rate of up to scores of gigabytes to better handle burst workloads. All user data are protected and moved in and out of the main store storage without host intervention, making the MTC Technology completely transparent to the user. Installing this in to your PS4 isn’t very hard but you should look for instructions either on playstation’s site or use google to find a walkthrough. Some things you will need are a screwdriver, a USB storage device with enough free space to back-up your current data, a PC to download the PS4 software, and a PS4 controller connected via a USB cable. After installing the drive I did see marginally better load times than the stock hard drive and it seemed quieter than the stock one as well. The biggest benefit of upgrading the drive is to increase the storage space on your PS4. Before this upgrade I was using the full space of my 500GB drive, now I have 2TB and should be good for a while before I need to upgrade again. If you need more space on your console then the Seagate FireCuda is a good place to start. The price is relatively cheap and performance is good overall.
Well, I've bought the older Seagate SSHD's (3.5" models from a few years ago) and those were decent performers and ran fairly cool. They also had a lot more SSD cache. I noted on the reviews that many complained about heat and early death when put in a console or laptop. Which told me there might be a heat issue with the product. I tried it in a tablo DVR I had just bought that can take an internal sata drive. Unfortunately the tablo had heat issues on its own, and this drive wasn't helping. Many folks on the tablo forums said they had to put a fan on the unit or a laptop cooler under it. Half that problem was the ridiculous observation that the tablo's internals were built upside down, and apparently they haven't figured that out yet. Big heat sink on the bottom, ... MoreWell, I've bought the older Seagate SSHD's (3.5" models from a few years ago) and those were decent performers and ran fairly cool. They also had a lot more SSD cache. I noted on the reviews that many complained about heat and early death when put in a console or laptop. Which told me there might be a heat issue with the product. I tried it in a tablo DVR I had just bought that can take an internal sata drive. Unfortunately the tablo had heat issues on its own, and this drive wasn't helping. Many folks on the tablo forums said they had to put a fan on the unit or a laptop cooler under it. Half that problem was the ridiculous observation that the tablo's internals were built upside down, and apparently they haven't figured that out yet. Big heat sink on the bottom, no fan. So the tablo went back and with a choice of adding this to an i7 laptop as a second drive or a mid tower desktop, I decided to avoid adding heat to the laptop. I installed this as a second drive in place of a very old sandisk sata SSD that was more about access time than read/write. Since it was off by itself attached to a big metal drive cage and well away from the cpu/gpu, the heat is manageable. But don't put this in something confined that creates a lot of heat. Performance? Well, maybe as a primary drive the ssd cache might eventually accelerate a common app or game a bit, once it sees that you're using it a lot. Its my Steam drive, apps and library. In this application its slower in every way vs the old sandisk SSD. I was pretty surprised that the drive couldn't beat the old SSD on writes. In fact, it wasn't even in the ballpark. About 1/8th the read performance, 1/2 the write performance. Well, it was a cheap 2tb drive with an ssd cache... TL;DR: Hot, slow, and an overall poor performer. Ignore the "gaming" and "fire" stuff, the only "fire" is happening inside the drive. Buy it for the price/TB. Don't expect a performance boost.
Excellent warranty on drive technology that is becoming a thing of the past. Speeds were comparable to a standard 5400 RPM drive that I had previously reviewed, but I’m not sure if that is a reflection on the testing software (HD Tach and Crystal Disc Mark) not being able to properly utilize the SSD cache, or if the drive just isn’t that fast. I will say that the predecessor to this drive was the standard for boot/storage in the developer laptops at my employer (have since moved on to SSD) and they were always a bottleneck for the mobility i7 processors used in the machines (Dell E6430). Not saying it’s a horrible drive, but just really is at a disadvantage when compared to SSD’s. Sure, you can’t get a 1TB SSD for $70, but I think a lot of people would gladly ... MoreExcellent warranty on drive technology that is becoming a thing of the past. Speeds were comparable to a standard 5400 RPM drive that I had previously reviewed, but I’m not sure if that is a reflection on the testing software (HD Tach and Crystal Disc Mark) not being able to properly utilize the SSD cache, or if the drive just isn’t that fast. I will say that the predecessor to this drive was the standard for boot/storage in the developer laptops at my employer (have since moved on to SSD) and they were always a bottleneck for the mobility i7 processors used in the machines (Dell E6430). Not saying it’s a horrible drive, but just really is at a disadvantage when compared to SSD’s. Sure, you can’t get a 1TB SSD for $70, but I think a lot of people would gladly “settle” for a 500GB SSD for $150. No heat, faster speeds, comparable lifespans, all adds up to a better option. Now as negative as this review sounds, I think there is an excellent use for the Firecuda 1TB – storage drive in a laptop. Many laptops have some sort of “ultra-bay”, and I think the Firecuda 1TB would pair up nicely with an SSD boot drive, serving as the “dumb” storage half of the equation. Only concern there would be a lack of airflow near the drive (spindle drives get hot in laptops, even with some degree of cooling. The size and form factor would be an excellent choice if we were to go back in time, but frankly speaking, with the continuing drop in SSD prices – and dialed in SSD controller firmware, I don’t really see the benefit of the Firecuda 1TB, except in a strictly storage sense situation. Speed difference in SSD’s for boot, and application use, can’t be ignored. Not a bad product, but only recommended for someone on a serious budget, or in need of small form factor storage.
Well, I'll start with this. When I bought the 2 FireCuda series SSHD's (8/2019), I figured it would be faster since the SSD part probably holds like the OS, leaving the rest of the drive using 40 year old technology. Seagate has always been a good brand, one that you could trust, which was another reason I purchased these SSHD's. Like I mentioned above, I liked the Dell Inspiron 5530 I bought back in like 2012. Liked it so much that when the Dell Engineers came out with a BIOS Update that opened up the board to accept 16gb memory, (up from 8gb). I figured I could live with that because the 2019 Dell Inspiron's with an Intel i5 Processor which was past the 6th generation wouldn't support Windows 7, just Windows 10 Pro. Since Win 10 has so many more open doors for 3rd ... MoreWell, I'll start with this. When I bought the 2 FireCuda series SSHD's (8/2019), I figured it would be faster since the SSD part probably holds like the OS, leaving the rest of the drive using 40 year old technology. Seagate has always been a good brand, one that you could trust, which was another reason I purchased these SSHD's. Like I mentioned above, I liked the Dell Inspiron 5530 I bought back in like 2012. Liked it so much that when the Dell Engineers came out with a BIOS Update that opened up the board to accept 16gb memory, (up from 8gb). I figured I could live with that because the 2019 Dell Inspiron's with an Intel i5 Processor which was past the 6th generation wouldn't support Windows 7, just Windows 10 Pro. Since Win 10 has so many more open doors for 3rd party vendor-access, (lol the gov is now considered a vendor now), I thought maybe I'll stick with this older laptop. Because I figured out the ''No Start'' issue with the 5520, I picked up 2 more from that good old auction site for next to nothing, just so I could have another backup, or since I help a couple single moms my Wife & myself know, if their children needed a laptop, I'd have at least one to give. I have refurbished a lot of laptops for those kids over the past 10 years now. Now back to the Firecudas. I tried one in one of these Dell's and wasn't thrilled with them, only because whn I read SSHD, I hoped that the SS part meant really fast but it wasn't, so I just pulled it out. Now with 2 of these bad-Boys sitting around and since I am upgrading 2 Towers & a Dell laptop with larger drives, maxing the memory and putting Windows 7 Pro on the Towers, they'll both have homes, the frind I'm doing the work for won't be spending much for all the work. Because these FireCuda SSHD drives are New, Old-Stock, he'll be getting the drives with just under 3 years warranty, he should be happy. All-in-All, I'd probably buy a couple more if I caught them on sale but with the sale prices on some of the SSD's & regular Storage Drives these days, I'd probably look for the regular Seagate Barracuda in a 1TB, unless I am doing a dual drive install, then a 500gb & a 1TB storage drive.... Sorry I went on & on but hopefully someone out there reading this review wants to stay with a Windows 7 OS (for privacy's sake) and then to go on one of those Dell Inspiron 5520's. I'm not one to get really concerned about being the fastest gun in the west with a laptop or tower. Rather, good quality privacy and good performance, (Oh yea & Bluetooth Earbuds, lol) Thnks for reading, have a really Blessed day and rest of the year... Dan
I normally buy Western Digital or Kingston for my storage. I was building two PCs for my step-sons and bought each of them one of these because of the price point for the amount of storage. They saved up their own money, and I figured they didn't need a higher end SSD, but needed lots of storage for the various games they play ..so this would be a good compromise of price / performance / storage. Boy was I wrong. Son #1 got his December of 2019. By January 2021, his computer was extremely slow in all aspects. By February, the drive completely failed and would not boot into Windows (was no longer detected in the BIOS). Received a replacement through Seagate warranty, and is currently up and running. Son #2 got his February of 2020. It's now May of 2021 and the drive ... MoreI normally buy Western Digital or Kingston for my storage. I was building two PCs for my step-sons and bought each of them one of these because of the price point for the amount of storage. They saved up their own money, and I figured they didn't need a higher end SSD, but needed lots of storage for the various games they play ..so this would be a good compromise of price / performance / storage. Boy was I wrong. Son #1 got his December of 2019. By January 2021, his computer was extremely slow in all aspects. By February, the drive completely failed and would not boot into Windows (was no longer detected in the BIOS). Received a replacement through Seagate warranty, and is currently up and running. Son #2 got his February of 2020. It's now May of 2021 and the drive is exhibiting the same issues. It's constantly at 100% disc usage. Ironically enough, it has lasted roughly the same amount of time before failing as Son #1. So I expect it won't be much longer before he has a dead drive too. I suppose it's possible that I just got really unlucky getting two drives, three months apart, that have both failed after the same amount of time. But that's entirely too coincidental in my opinion. My first experience with Seagate products, and I can tell you I will be steering clear of them for my storage needs in the future...
