Any PC gamer out there knows the sheer joy of cutting down loading times by moving games to an SSD. Solid State Storage may have a much shorter lifespan compared to traditional platter drives, but the benefits of speed and performance cannot be beat. And anyone who can upgrade to an SSD as their Steam drive, should. During CES 2020 this week, Seagate wants you to do just that. The company has just announced a new portable storage line of FireCuda SSDs and the new BarraCuda Fast SSD.
The new FireCuda SSDs line is being billed as a direct companion with the new FireCuda Gaming Dock. This device combines Seagate’s FireCuda NVMe 510 SSD and the SuperSpeed USB 20Gb/s (USB 3.2 Gen2×2) interface to create a Thunderbolt-based platform for PC gamers on the go, who still want blistering-fast speeds.
The first of these SSD packages is less than a month away. The FireCuda SSDs line will apparently have “read speeds of up to 2000MB/s1.” It will also be available in 2TB, 1TB, and 500 GB models. This will of course mean that you will have to use the Gaming Dock, as it combines NVMe storage with high-speed USB to achieve these speeds.
Another option is plain USB 3.0, which should offer plenty of speed. Both the Xbox One and PS4 have USB 3.0, so this could be an easy upgrade for console gamers looking for extra storage. And since the stock Xbox One for example only uses a 2.5-inch SATA II hard drive, the USB 3.x SSD should be able to beat the 3Gbit/s maximum of SATA II, assuming it can keep the speed up. Although some will be concerned over the longevity of the SSDs, as these most likely use newer but less reliable QLC flash cells. These drives do use SLC as a write cache though, to speed up transfer times a bit. So be aware, and never fill an SSD to capacity.
The only way you’re going to get comparable speeds without an SSD is to use a more expensive RAID NAS solution. So this seems like a very nice option if you can afford it. Another option is to grab a cheap SSD enclosure with USB 3.0, and pair it with a decent SSD. This option will come out nearly $300 cheaper if you’re upgrading for a game console. This also beats out the Seagate Game Drive line that was announced a while back in terms of performance.
(Image Credit: Seagate)
Here’s the specs!
FIRECUDA GAMING SSD
- Available: March 2020
- Five-year limited warranty
- 500 GB model, $189.99 USD
- 1TB model, $259.99 USD
- 2TB model, $499.99 USD
BARRACUDA FAST SSD
- Available: February 2020
- three-year limited warranty
- 500 GB model, $94.99 USD
- 1TB model, $169.99 USD
- 2TB model, $299.99 USD
So yeah, if you’re looking for a new gaming SSD upgrade, this may be something you want to consider.