Seagate is best known as a big hard-disk manufacturer and since technology dictates that solid-state drives are the future, they eventually stepped up their best efforts in delivering competitive solutions across the board.
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We recently received the Seagate FireCuda 510 SSD. This particular drive utilizes the M.2 form factor which supports NVMe 1.3 on the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface. Underneath, we see a Seagate flash controller which is a rebranded PS5012. Seagate was able to pair their controller with 1TB of 3D TLC NAND flash from Toshiba, and give 1GB of DDR4 DRAM for the SSD controller’s mapping tables.
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The Seagate FireCuda 510 SSD, we see that it connects to the host system over a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 interface. On the PCB, we find four flash chips, the controller and two DRAM chips.
Seagate rebranded a Phison PS5012-E12 controller. This uses eight flash channels and supports 3D TLC, QLC and PCIe 3.0 x4. The four TLC flash chips are made by Toshiba on a 15 nanometer 3D NAND.
Seagate’s SSD utility tool is the SeaTools SSD. It is an extensive tool that displays drive information including model, capacity, disk usage, temperature and remaining life. Aside from that, it also gives information about the drive interface and has an event log that can be exported once you run the firmware updates.
Additionally, Seagate disc cloning can be done via the DiscWizard.
CrystalDiskMark
CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s.
Checking both the CrystalDiskMark results, it shows that the Phison PS5012-E12 controller used in the FireCuda 510 gives better efficiency when reading compressible data.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
ATTO Disk Benchmark measures storage system performance utilizing a variety of transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Using ATTO Disk Benchmark can represent RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives, and SSD drives consistent provision of the highest level of performance.
Based on the ATTO Disk Benchmarks, our review sample came close to what the Seagate FireCuda 1TB drives are meant to reach. Our drives maxed out at 2,850 MB/s writes and 3,240 MB/s reads while the official maximum Sequential write/read figures are supposedly 3,200 MB/s and 3,450 MB/s.
AS SSD
AS SSD relays a sequential read and writes tests, as well as random read and write tests utilizing sequential access times on a certain part of the drive.
The Seagate FireCuda 1TB drive presents a powerful performance in the AS SSD benchmark with 2833.68 MB/s reads and 2668.09 MB/s writes.
On this part of the AS SSD, a straight line would be ideal as you wouldn’t want any compression performance loss.
PCMARK8
This synthetic benchmark replicates everyday disk access like photo editing and web browsing. The tests runs through test suite of 10 applications showing total bandwidth performance.
PCMARK8Seagate’s FireCuda 510 went through PCMark8’s Storage Test excellently.
FINAL FANTASY XIV LOADING TIME
On this part of the review, we use the Final Fantasy XIV – Stormblood Benchmark which represents 5 Scenes and total loading times. This would give a representation of how fast each scene would load when booting up games and transitioning levels.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The official Sequential ratings for the drive are up to 3,450 MB/s for reads and 3,200 MB/s for writes. With ATTO Benchmark, we got close to the maximum write score a 2,850 MB/s writes and 3,240 MB/s reads while the official maximum Sequential write/read figures are supposedly 3,200 MB/s and 3,450 MB/s.
Seagate’s known utility tool, SeaTools now has an SSD version. The software allows partitioning of drives, health checks, firmware updates, and more. The FireCuda 510 comes in the higher variants while the lower capacity ones come with the Barracuda model.
If you’re out looking for a brand new NVMe SSD, the FireCuda 510 is a great choice. The company offers great value for its performance. With amazing endurance, this can only result in long years of use, backed with its five-year warranty.