Seagate has launched a brace of external SSDs for gamers at CES. The accent is on speed and lighting effects.
The FireCuda Gaming SSD is based on Seagate’s FireCuda 510 NVMe SSD, an internal M.2 format drive, and sacrifices much of its speed in the transformation to an external drive. The 510 speeds along at up to 3,450MB/sec while the FireCuda Gaming manages up to 2,000MB/sec across its USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 2 interface.
If your host system has a USB 3.1 port the speed falls to a maximum of 1,250 MB/sec.
While you are waiting for the IO to complete you can customise the drive’s LED lighting. This can be synchronised with a FireCuda Gaming Dock, “creating an immersive setup.”
Seagate’s second new gaming SSD, the BarraCuda Fast SSD, has a SATA connection that can manage up to 540MB/sec. This is pedestrian compared to the FireCuda but better than a disk drive. It has a green LED light effect.
Both drives come in 500GB, 1TB and 2TB capacity points and have a five-year (FireCuda) or three-year (BarraCuda) warranty. The 510 uses Toshiba 64-layer 3D NAND set up in TLC (3bits/cell) form. We think the Gaming SSD version uses the same NAND while the BarraCuda Fast SSD uses 96-layer NAND.
The FireCuda Gaming SSD retails for $189.99 (500GB), $259.99 (1TB), and $499.99 (2TB) and is available in March. The BarraCuda Fast SSD is out in February,and retails for $94.99 (500GB), $169.99 (1TB), and $299.99 (2TB). Slower speed gets you lower prices than the FireCuda Gaming SSD.
