Custom PC – October 2019

H

arddrivebehemothSeagatehasrecentlyreturned

totheSSDmarket,withitsnewFirecudaNVME

drivesavailableincapacitiesof1TBor2TB,

withstatedmaximumsequentialreadandwritespeeds

of3,450MB/secand3,200MB/secrespectively.

Youcanalsogetlower-capacityversionsofessentiallythe

samedrive,butSeagatehasbrandedthesedriveswiththe

Barracudaname,inlinewiththereductioninperformancethat

comeswithlowercapacities.Availablein256GBand512GB

models,theyofferalmostthesamestatedreadspeedof

3,400MB/sec,butthewritespeeddropsto2,180MB/secon

the512GBmodelandjust1,050MB/seconthe256GBversion.

Thedrivesaregovernedbya PhisonE12NVMecontroller,

whichhasfourcoresandfeaturesuptoeightNANDchannels

and 32 NANDchip-enable(CE)lines.Whilewe’veseenthe

introductionofPCI-E4 withAMD’sX570platform,aswell

assupportingdrives(seep26),thePhisonE12is a PCI-E 3

controller.It’spartneredwithToshiba’slatest64-layer3DTLC

NAND,withfourmodulesusedtocreatethis1TBdrive.Unlike

someM.2SSDs,thesemodulesaremountedonbothsidesof

thedrive,althoughthisshouldn’taffectanyPCinstallations.

Foreach1TBofstorage,thedrivesuse1MBofDRAMcache.

TheuseofTLCNANDalsonecessitatesusingsomeofthe

NANDfunctionasanSLCcachetomaintainhigh

writespeeds.Thiscacheis dynamic,soyourexact

sustainedwritespeedwilldependonhowmuch

datais storedonthedrive,butitsbaselevelis 28GB,

whichis plentyformostsustainedwriteoperations.

Ofcourse,theuseofTLCNANDalsomarks

thisdriveasbeingnotentirelysuitedtosustained

seriouslyheavyworkloads.However,that’snot

a concernoutsideofveryspecialistheavy-duty

scenarios.There’salsonohardwareencryption.

Ontheplusside,Seagatestatesa plentiful

writeenduranceof1,300totalterabyteswritten

(TBW)andthedrivehasa five-yearwarranty.

However,whenit comestoperformance,the

Firecuda 510 impresses.InCrystalDiskMark,it was

justa littleshyofSeagate’sperformanceclaims

forsequentialspeeds,butstillessentiallymaxed

outthelimitationsofPCI-E3.Likewise,inAS-SSD,

SUPPLIERoverclockers.co.uk

SEAGATEFIRECUDA

510 /£225incVAT

PCI-E 3 NVMESSD

it deliveredfiguresthatrivalmosttop-levelalternatives, even

if it couldn’tquitecatchtheSamsungSSD970 Evo Plus.

Asforrandomread/writeperformance,it also kept pace

withotherhigh-endrivals,even

outperformingtheSamsung 970

EvoPlus.Duringa sustainedwrite

test,thedynamicSLCcacheheldup

well,deliveringa consistent1.8GB/

secspeedfora 200GBwrite.

Conclusion

Whenit comestoperformance,this

drivedoesn’tdisappoint,although

itsrelianceonPCI-E3 alreadyputsit

behindtheverylatestcompetition.

Therearealsonoextras,orhardware

encryption,allofwhichmakesit difficult

tojustifytheprice– the1TBSamsung

970 EvoPluscurrentlygoesfor£200

incVAT,andfasterPCI-E4 drivesonly

gofor£250incVATnow.TheFirecuda

510 is good,butit needstobecheaper

inthishighlycompetitivefield.

EDWARDCHESTER

REVIEWS / SOLID STATE DRIVE

VERDICT

CompetitivePCI-E3 performance,but

thepriceistoohigh.

OVERALLSCORE

75 %

PERFORMANCE

40 / 50

FEATURES

16 / 20

VALUE

19 / 30

SPEC

Form factor

M.2 2280

Interface

4x PCI-E 3

Connection standard

NVMe

NAND

Toshiba 64-layer 3D TLC

Controller

Phison PS5012-E12

Write endurance

1,300TBW

Warranty

Five years

Capacities

1TB, 2TB

TOASTY

+ Greatperformance

+ Clever dynamic

write caches

TEPID

• Overpriced


• No hardware
  encryption

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000

SeagateFirecuda 510 1TB

Samsung 970EvoPlus500GB

3,109MB/sec 3253MB/sec

3,280MB/sec 3566MB/sec

Intel760p1TB 1,584MB/sec 3,177MB/sec

CRYSTALDISKMARK

Sequential QD32

0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000

SeagateFirecuda 510 1TB

Samsung 970 EvoPlus500GB

1,163MB/sec 1,278MB/sec

1,021MB/sec1,102MB/sec

Intel 760p 1024GB 1,022MB/sec871MB/sec

Random QD32, 4 threads

Write Read