Seagate FireCuda Forge external HDD review: Is this the best portable hard drive ever?

by · TechRadar

TechRadar Verdict

It took me a while to get my head around how tiered storage worked, with initial benchmarks showing the speed of the SSD, which acts as an access point to the internal HDD's vast storage. Pushing the system by switching between large projects showed those limits. However, overall performance for quickly offloading files and editing small to medium-sized video projects is impressive.

Reasons to buy

  • +Fast transfers
  • +Large-capacity drive
  • +Easy to use

Reasons to avoid

  • -Self-installation of the SSD
  • -Not bus-powered
  • -Relatively large physical size

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Seagate FireCuda Forge: 30-second review

Specs

Storage Capacity: 8TB / 20TB HDD
Storage Technology: Seagate Alkemi dynamic tiered storage
HDD Form Factor: 3.5-inch
SSD Type: M.2 2280 NVMe (user-installed, not included)
SSD Interface: PCIe Gen 3 or newer
Maximum Sequential :Read Speed: 2,500MB/s, Write Speed: 2,000MB/s
Computer Interface: USB4 (USB-C)
Operating System Compatibility: Windows 11, macOS 26 or later
Power: External AC power adapter
Dimensions: 240.3 × 146.8 × 65.2mm
Weight: 1.919kg (20TB), 1.845kg (8TB)
Warranty: 2 years (UK and Europe)

Seagate has approached the latest iteration of its FireCuda Forge external HDD in an interesting new way for this drive format. Essentially, it combines the speed of an SSD and the storage capacity of an HDD in one device. While this has been done before, as it works as tiered or cached storage, this is usually seen in enterprise level hardware.

This works by having your main HDD, which in this case is a large 20TB drive, and then having a smaller but faster SSD. When you plug in the drive, instead of seeing the two as you would expect, you see only one.

As you copy files to the drive, the system uses the SSD to speed up transfers, while Seagate's Alkemi technology automatically prioritises frequently accessed files on the SSD and keeps less frequently accessed files on the HDD.

Getting started with the drive does require you to insert an SSD of your choice, as the main unit arrives with just the 20TB HDD installed, so you’ll need to purchase an SSD as well, which is something to consider when you look at the cost. Seagate supplied a 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD, but the specifications show a 1TB limit. Another key factor is that the SSD should include DRAM cache.

Installing the SSD is easy enough, and once it's installed, I was able to plug the drive into the USB4 port of the GMKtec EVO-X5 Pro. Unlike the FireCuda X Vault that I looked at recently, which is bus-powered, the Forge requires its own power supply.

Initial tests showed this drive’s potential, and while the interface is USB4 and the M.2 SSD inside is the latest PCIe 5.0, the speed tests hovered around 2,000MB/s for both read and write.

This is far in excess of any HDD I have used in the past and showed that, while I could only see the single drive, the SSD was doing its job and enabling these much faster transfer rates.

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