Seagate FireCuda 530 2TB SSD Review

Seagate's first venture into the PCIe Gen4 SSD market was the FireCuda 520, but now we have the 2nd generation Seagate Gen4 drive in the shape of the FireCuda 530, a much more capable SSD that is using a faster controller and the latest in consumer NAND technology.

The Seagate FireCuda 520 used a combination of a Phison PS5016-E16 controller and BiCS4 96-Layer 3D TLC NAND. The company have upped the ante with the FireCuda 530 as it uses the more advanced Phison PS5018-E18 controller linked to Micron's B47R 176-layer 3D TLC NAND. The FireCuda 530 line is made up of four capacities (one more than the FireCuda 520); 500GB. 1TB, 2TB and the new 4TB flagship drive.

The new NAND technology plus the more modern and efficient controller sees the FireCuda 530 offering much more in the way of performance than the previous drive. The 2TB FireCuda 520 topped out at 5,000MB/s and 4,400MB/s for Sequential read and writes respectively. The FireCuda 530 raises these to up to 7,300MB/s for reads and 6,900MB/s for writes. As for 4K random performance, the FireCuda 520 is rated at up to 750,000 IOPS for reads and up to 700,000 IOPS for writes. Both are taken up to 1,000,000 IOPS for the 2TB FireCuda 530.

Using CrystalDiskMark 8 we could confirm the official Sequential read figure of 7,300MB/s with a best test figure of 7459MB/s (default 0 fill) while the best write test figure of 6,880MB/s (Peak Performance Profile) is just under the 6,900MB/s official maximum.

When it comes to 4K random performance, we couldn't get close to the official maximums of 1,000,000 IOPS for read and writes, the best we saw during testing was 666,437 IOPS for reads and 541,103 IOPS for writes, both coming via testing with the default CrystalDiskMark Peak Performance Profile.

The 2TB FireCuda 530 gets a TBW rating of 2,550TB and as well as backing the drive with a five-year warranty, while Seagate also provides three years of their Rescue Data Recovery Services.

We found the 2TB Seagate FireCuda 530 on Overclockers UK for £319.99 (inc VAT) HERE.

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Pros

• Overall Performance.
• Endurance.
• 5-year warranty.

Cons

• Couldn't get close to the official 4K figures under testing.

KitGuru says: Using a combination of a fast efficient controller and the latest 3D NAND technology, the FireCuda 530 takes the accolade as the fastest Seagate consumer drive to date.

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