HEXUS reviewed the Seagate FireCuda 520 PCIe Gen 4 SSD (1TB) back in December 2019, and now Seagate has seen fit to launch a follow-up series dubbed the FireCuda 530 PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD. Again aimed at gamers, the new drives provide a boost in performance, with up to 7,300MB/s read speeds (the previous version with Phison E16 controller maxed out at 5,000MB/s). Helping the new FireCuda 530 drives in their quest for speed are the Seagate-validated E18 controller and the latest 3D TLC NAND. An option with a minimalistic heatsink, specially designed by EKWB, will be available at retailers too.
In an email to HEXUS, Seagate described the speeds offered by the new FireCuda 530 M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs as being "up to two times faster than PCIe Gen3 SSDs and 12 times faster than SATA-based SSDs". Thankfully it didn't go down the road of comparing the performance against HDDs or floppy disks.
The new FireCuda 530 drives are being made available in capacities up to 4TB, and with endurance ratings of up to 1.8m hours MTBF and up to 5,100TBW. Using another metric, Seagate claims gamers can write and delete 70 per cent of the drive capacity every day for 5 years within this warranty. However, it is worth mentioning that the FireCuda 520 had a 100 per cent DWPD warranty – but it seems like the growth of Chia has reined in warranties across the storage market.
Seagate is selling the FireCuda 530 M.2 NVMe Gen 4 SSDs in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB, as you can see from the above features / specs table. Recommended pricing (sans heatsink) has been set at US$140, $240, $490, and $950, respectively. The drives are supposed to ship this summer.
For some background / comparison reading, HEXUS reviewed a Phison E18 controller based PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 back in Feb, the Corsair MP600 Pro SSD (2TB).
