Seagate’s FireCuda Forge moves your data between a hard drive and SSD for better performance

Seagate announced the FireCuda Forge external storage solution, which combines the capacity of a hard drive with the speed of an SSD. According to The Verge, the Forge is the first drive powered by the new Alkemi intelligent platform. PCWorld reported that the device comes in 8TB and 20TB capacities, with Seagate charging $699 for the 8TB model and $899 for the 20TB model. Tom's Hardware noted that the enclosure measures 9.5 x 5.8 x 2.6 inches and weighs over four pounds, requiring a USB4 connection and an external power adapter.

There is a notable catch to the hardware setup. PCWorld and The Verge reported that the NVMe SSD is not included and must be provided by the user. Tom's Hardware explained that users must partially disassemble the enclosure by removing four screws from the bottom using a tiny included hex-bit driver to install an M.2 2280 SSD into the side bay. Seagate recommends a PCIe Gen 3 M.2 internal SSD less than 1TB with a RAM cache, delivering 2,400/2,000MB/s read and write speeds. Tom's Hardware noted that while newer and faster PCIe 4.0 drives are supported, they will not improve performance. Seagate officially qualified a sparse list of SSDs, including Samsung's 990 Pro and 530R, and WD/SanDisk SN850X and SN710 drives.

The Alkemi platform handles unifying and managing data between the spinning platter drive and the SSD. According to Tom's Hardware, Seagate describes Alkemi as an "on-device dynamic caching and workload-aware data-prioritization technology" that observes workloads and gives priority to active or frequently used data. The Verge reported that machine learning is used to dynamically move data based on current workloads, while the system always appears as a single drive connected to the computer. Seagate rates the FireCuda Forge with read speeds up to 2,500MB/s and write speeds up to 2,000MB/s. Tom's Hardware and The Verge stated that the drive works with computers running Windows 11 or macOS 26 and later.

Tom's Hardware observed that the Forge displayed gamer-friendly RGB lighting similar to the FireCuda X Vault HDD. During testing, the edge of the drive where the SSD is installed grew noticeably warmer due to the plastic surfaces and thermal pads, but did not get hot. According to The Verge and Tom's Hardware, the FireCuda Forge is available through Seagate's online store, Newegg, and Best Buy.