Mechanical hard drives can also be equipped with an SSD! Seagate Launches 20TB External Hard Drive

According to news from Fast Technology on November 12, Seagate has officially launched the FireCuda Forge external storage device, available in 8TB and 20TB capacities. It can add high-speed caching capabilities to high-capacity mechanical hard drives through user-installed NVMe SSDs.

According to information on Seagate products obtained by Fast Technology, the FireCuda Forge is not a traditional SSHD. It has an M.2 2280 slot reserved within the external mechanical hard drive. The SSD is not included with the product, and the device cannot function without an installed compatible SSD.

Users need to prepare an NVMe SSD with PCIe 3.0 or higher specifications, with a maximum capacity of 1TB, and read and write speeds of no less than 2400MB/s and 2000MB/s, respectively. Seagate also recommends choosing a model with an independent DRAM cache.

After installing the SSD, the built-in Alkemi technology dynamically manages data based on access frequency, placing frequently used games, materials being edited, etc., in the SSD cache, while less frequently used content is kept on the high-capacity HDD. The computer only sees one hard drive partition.

The SSD is only used as a cache here, and its capacity will not be added to that of the HDD. For example, after installing a 1TB SSD in the 20TB version, the single volume capacity displayed by the system is still determined by the 20TB HDD and will not increase to 21TB.

Seagate claims that the technology has handled 4.3 million read and write requests across multiple gaming workloads, with a cache hit rate of 90%. However, these are the manufacturer's test results, and actual performance will also be affected by usage habits and file types.

The FireCuda Forge connects via USB-C and supports USB4, with a rated maximum read speed of 2500 MB/s and a write speed of 2000 MB/s. This does not mean that all data on the 20TB HDD can consistently achieve these speeds. Data that has not yet been cached still needs to be read from the HDD layer.

This product is compatible with Windows 11 and macOS 26 or later. It requires an external power supply. The 20TB version weighs approximately 1.919 kg, making it more akin to a desktop storage device than a portable hard drive for on-the-go use.

In terms of pricing, the 20TB version is priced at €1,064.99 (approximately ¥7,917) in Europe, while the 8TB version is priced at €794.99 (approximately ¥5,910). Neither product includes an SSD.

Source: MyDrivers (Fast Technology). Content is presented with source attribution. Read the original report.