Review: Seagate FireCuda 520 PCIe Gen 4 SSD (1TB)

by Parm Mann on 5 December 2019, 14:01

Tags: Seagate (NASDAQ:STX)

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Conclusion

Performance is undeniably strong in the right scenario, however the real-world benefit remains questionable during regular use...

Appreciating that enthusiasts will be eager to adopt ultra-high-speed storage on the very latest AMD Ryzen platforms, a number of manufacturers have been quick off the mark with latest-generation PCIe Gen 4 solutions in the popular M.2 form factor.

Quick to enter the fray is Seagate, whose FireCuda 520 sets its sights on the gaming market with the promise of headline sequential read and write speeds of 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s, respectively.

Such figures are achieved through an increasingly common combination of Phison E16 controller and Toshiba 96-layer TLC NAND, and Seagate backs the drive with a decent endurance rating and a five-year warranty as standard. Performance is undeniably strong in the right scenario, however the real-world benefit remains questionable during regular use, and the price premium over mature PCIe Gen 3 drives isn't easily justified.

Bottom line: want to experience cutting-edge storage on an AMD Ryzen platform? Seagate FireCuda 520 is a fine start, but expect prices to drop as competition heats up in 2020.

The Good
  
The Bad
5,000MB/s read and 4,400MB/s write
Takes advantage of PCIe Gen 4 on AMD Ryzen
Five-year warranty and big-name support
  
Caching performance still erratic
Significant price premium over Gen 3 drives



Seagate FireCuda 520 PCIe Gen 4 SSD

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The Seagate FireCuda 520 PCIe Gen 4 SSD is available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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Posted by blokeinkent - Thu 05 Dec 2019 14:42
So on Scan 500GB 520 is selling cheaper than the 510. ok
Posted by KultiVator - Thu 05 Dec 2019 15:26
blokeinkent
So on Scan 500GB 520 is selling cheaper than the 510. ok

Yeah - but watch out for the lower write speed of the 500GB 520 vs the 1TB+ 520s.
Posted by Tunnah - Thu 05 Dec 2019 16:07
The key selling point, of course, is performance, and peak sequential read and write speeds of up to 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s are not to be scoffed at. A near-45 per cent uptick in read performance is reason enough for most enthusiasts to want to upgrade,
Not true, imo. “Enthusiasts”, typically speaking, are the people who still use bang for buck but they use it in crazy places like, M.2 drives, top end graphics cards cases, monitors, etc. They'll spend real money because they feel a real feeling of..accomplishment ? I guess. I suck at words. I should get a thesaurus.

ANYWHO. My entire point is, no enthusiast is changing their m.2 to one of these. The types of people who do that aren't enthusiasts, they're the show offs, the clowns, the ones who must have the best etc. because yeah it might be faster at read and write in single file performance, but considering that with a current 1tb m.2 (which is literally half the price of this) games open before I click the buttons, and the ones with 4K textures are annoying purely because I have to wait so long for my mates to load in…if you're paying twice as much for what would equate to a nominal amount of performance increase, you're not en enthusiast..you're just a clown.

Also I bet you drive an Audi

EDIT: before it's brought up, every reference to media production was purposely left out, as this wouldn't be used for that, as there are better options, done a thousand different better ways with a thousand different budgets. But no bean counter office is ever gonna let you have these for your production server :P
Posted by 3dcandy - Thu 05 Dec 2019 16:36
Tunnah
Not true, imo. “Enthusiasts”, typically speaking, are the people who still use bang for buck but they use it in crazy places like, M.2 drives, top end graphics cards cases, monitors, etc. They'll spend real money because they feel a real feeling of..accomplishment ? I guess. I suck at words. I should get a thesaurus.

ANYWHO. My entire point is, no enthusiast is changing their m.2 to one of these. The types of people who do that aren't enthusiasts, they're the show offs, the clowns, the ones who must have the best etc. because yeah it might be faster at read and write in single file performance, but considering that with a current 1tb m.2 (which is literally half the price of this) games open before I click the buttons, and the ones with 4K textures are annoying purely because I have to wait so long for my mates to load in…if you're paying twice as much for what would equate to a nominal amount of performance increase, you're not en enthusiast..you're just a clown.

Also I bet you drive an Audi

EDIT: before it's brought up, every reference to media production was purposely left out, as this wouldn't be used for that, as there are better options, done a thousand different better ways with a thousand different budgets. But no bean counter office is ever gonna let you have these for your production server :P

To be fair… although I can see some point in your logic I strongly disagree. Someone with a new Ryzen 3 system with a decent X570 board would be mad not to buy one of these if they are in for a decent upgrade. I have a corsair g3 nvme drive and it's awesome makes an absolutely huge difference to how the system responds in normal useage
Posted by stevie lee - Thu 05 Dec 2019 17:09
Do also be aware that Gen 4 drives are backward compatible; with the same drive attached to our regular Intel test platform via PCIe Gen 3 x4, we managed sequential read and write speeds of 3,481MB/s and 3,358MB/s, respectively. Handy to know if you're planning to use the drive on an existing rig before upgrading to PCIe Gen 4 at a later date.

any chance of testing a Gen 3 drive in the Gen 4 slot too see if it goes any faster? see whether the Gen 3's are forward compatible?
to see whether its worth paying so much for the Gen 4. they all seem to cap around these speeds so maybe there more to be had from them in the faster Gen 4 slot?

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