The Seagate FireCuda 530, 2 GB/s Sustained Writes? No Problem!

A Serious Workstation PCIe 4.0 SSD

ServeTheHome are the perfect testers for the Seagate FireCuda 530 as it has been built to work, and work hard.  The 1TB of 176-layer Micron TLC NAND on the drive is rated for 1275 TBW, roughly double what the competition offers and an indication of just what this drive is intended for.   There are two models available, one without a heatsink and the model tested which comes with an integrated heatsink which seems rather difficult to remove.

The rated speeds are 7300 MB/s sequential read and 6000 MB/s sequential write with most tests reaching those numbers, making it one of the faster drives available on the market.  It is SPECworkstation and sustained writes where this drive really shows it’s stuff.  In the Product Development, Media, and General Operations tests the Seagate FireCuda 530 trampled the competition, though not the Energy benchmark where it didn’t quite make first place.

For their sustained write test, they filled the drive the 85% mark using 10 simultaneous write threads, and the drive quickly hit 2GB/s and stayed there, the whole time.  If you are mostly gaming, the price premium on the Seagate FireCuda 530 is not really worth it, however if you intend to frequently write huge amounts of data the longevity of the flash and the sustained writes make this drive a good investment.