Review Seagate FireCuda 120 SATA SSD Review: Fast, Expensive, and Enduring

[Admin]

Powered by Phison’s S12 SATA controller and Kioxia’s BiCS4 TLC flash, the Seagate FireCuda 120 delivers responsive performance and reliability in high capacities.

Seagate FireCuda 120 SATA SSD Review: Fast, Expensive, and Enduring : Read more

 

[Flayed]

Talking about SSD endurance, I've had my 860 Evo for a year now and the total bytes written are 7140.4GB. I don't think I'm in the demographic for a high endurance drive 😛

 

[USAFRet]

Talking about SSD endurance, I've had my 860 Evo for a year now and the total bytes written are 7140.4GB. I don't think I'm in the demographic for a high endurance drive 😛

Outside of a corporate database, almost no one is.

Of my current 7 drives:
C - 500GB 850 EVO: 54.733TBW, 38k POH
E - 250GB 840 EVO: 4.750TBW, 73k POH
K - 250GB 840 EVO: 5.3TBW, 72k POH
G - 1TB 860 EVO: 3.5TBW, 17.5k POH
I - 1TB SanDisk Ultra II: 1.6TBW, 17k POH
F - 500GB 860 EVO: 1.1TBW, 20k POH
H - 1TB Intel 660p: 4.2TBW, 13.1k POH


Cumulative total:
75.1 TBW, 235k POH, (AKA 9,700 days, 26.8 years).

 

[evdjj3j]

I don't think fast means what the author thinks it means.

 

[seanwebster]

I don't think fast means what the author thinks it means.

Slow compared to NVMe for seq transfers sure. At least it isn't a slow DRAMless SSD. It's fast for SATA.

 

[USAFRet]

Slow compared to NVMe for seq transfers sure. At least it isn't a slow DRAMless SSD. It's fast for SATA.

Average for SATA III. And at $190 for 1TB, over priced.
Current 860 EVO is $110 for 1TB.

 

[seanwebster]

Average for SATA III. And at $190 for 1TB, over priced.
Current 860 EVO is $110 for 1TB.

Way overpriced

 

[escksu]

I have to say endurance is never an issue for mainstream end-user drives. You will easily get around 200-300TBW for 500GB drive, 250GB probably 100-150TBW.

If you have to write 200TB of data onto your 500GB drive, you probably need a bigger drive instead. I used to have an Adata 500GB but its too small due to the ridiculous of space needed by games today, esp. online games (eg. WOT, WOWS, MWO etc...). I usually play them 1-2 times a week. Not that often but having to reinstall every time I play is too tedious. So, bought 1TB drive and resolve the space issue.

Of course, there are situations where uses will need to keep writing to the drive (eg. video editing), but this isn't what most end-users do on a daily basis.

 

[Glock24]

I have to say endurance is never an issue for mainstream end-user drives. You will easily get around 200-300TBW for 500GB drive, 250GB probably 100-150TBW.

If you have to write 200TB of data onto your 500GB drive, you probably need a bigger drive instead. I used to have an Adata 500GB but its too small due to the ridiculous of space needed by games today, esp. online games (eg. WOT, WOWS, MWO etc...). I usually play them 1-2 times a week. Not that often but having to reinstall every time I play is too tedious. So, bought 1TB drive and resolve the space issue.

Of course, there are situations where uses will need to keep writing to the drive (eg. video editing), but this isn't what most end-users do on a daily basis.

Endurance may not be an issue for regular users, but reliability is. I've seen dear ADATA and Kingston drives, bit I've yet to see a dead Samsung, Crucial, Intel or Sandisk SSD.

Also the cheap SSDs than come with cheap laptops are really crappy, probably DRAMLESS or QLC or both. I saw a Dell that's like 6 months old and the 256GB Kioxia drive it comes with is already al 90% health with very light use.

As a comparison, I've got Samsung 840 (non-Evo) 120GB drives in office PCs with over 6 years of use and they show ~93% health.

 

[USAFRet]

Endurance may not be an issue for regular users, but reliability is. I've seen dear ADATA and Kingston drives, bit I've yet to see a dead Samsung, Crucial, Intel or Sandisk SSD.

Also the cheap SSDs than come with cheap laptops are really crappy, probably DRAMLESS or QLC or both. I saw a Dell that's like 6 months old and the 256GB Kioxia drive it comes with is already al 90% health with very light use.

As a comparison, I've got Samsung 840 (non-Evo) 120GB drives in office PCs with over 6 years of use and they show ~93% health.

Indeed.
The only one of my SSD's that showed any slowdown was a Kingston. And I wouldn't buy an ADATA at all.
The 2x 840 EVO I have in this system are still showing 100% health after 6 years.

 

[gg83]

How can Seagate compete with these high prices? The competition is close enough and much cheaper. Is endurance that important?

 

[cyrusfox]

How can Seagate compete with these high prices? The competition is close enough and much cheaper. Is endurance that important?

The Sata market is pretty stagnant, honestly I love to see competition over just budget offerings, I was recommended the S31, but with the new 870 EVO and this drive, I hope someone does a modern Sata only SSD roundup. Lots of old platforms out there that could use a face lift still. and MSRP only sticks around when there is no Supply (i.e. current GPU market). I would expect a decent mark down to make them competitive and sell.

 

[Flayed]

These drives are pretty much at the limit of the interface.

 

[mdd1963]

Somewhere, right now, someone is ordering this because it has the word 'gaming' on it...(and, probably paying more for it than for an NVME drive!)

And it's hard (but amusing) to read 'blazing fast' and 'SATA' within the same sentence.