When USB hubs become gamer too - seagate announces new dock + SSDs

[williamcll]

Seagate has announced some new hardware as well as refreshing some old models.

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Seagate is blazing up a firestorm with the release of two new storage products for gamers, a new gaming dock, and a PCIe 4.0 x4 FireCuda SSD. The company is also refreshing a few of the other SSDs in its lineup, too.

FireCuda Gaming Dock

Seagate’s FireCuda Gaming Dock is a high-end gaming hub that integrates a docking station and external storage into one device. It’s meant to be a perfect fit for laptop gamers who aren’t ready to jump on the desktop gaming PC bandwagon yet.

As many laptops are constrained by storage, Seagate is launching the unit with 4TB 7200RPM HDD inside for those growing game libraries. The company also threw in a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 expansion slot just in case you’re looking to add some high-speed NVMe storage, too. The dock features one-cord plug-and-play connectivity over a single Thunderbolt 3 input. There are also 10 connections to the docking station to connect your other peripherals. 

 

• 1x TB3 port for accessory devices

• 1x DisplayPort 1.4

• 4x USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports

• 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 battery charge port 

• 1x RJ45 Ethernet network port

• 1x 3.5mm audio-in / mic port

• 1x 3.5mm audio-out port

Unfortunately, there is no charging support for laptops, so you will have to use your power brick when you're connected to the dock. But it offers a slick industrial design with LED illumination. It comes to market with an MSRP of $349.99 and a three-year warranty.

FireCuda 520 SSD

If the gaming dock wasn’t enough to spark your interest, Seagate’s new PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD just might. It’s Seagate's top-of-the-line SSD, and a solid choice to add some more speed to your new AMD Ryzen 3000 build.

Like a few other PCIe 4.0 SSDs in the market, Seagate’s FireCuda 520 features a Phison E16 SSD controller that has been validated by the company. Paired with Kioxia’s 96L BiCS4 TLC NAND flash, seagate says this combo enables incredible performance with up to 5,000/4,400 MBps of sequential read/write throughput and up to 760,000/700,000 random read/write IOPS. The drive comes with a black PCB and has an MTBF rating of 1.8M hours. It also comes with a five-year warranty with endurance figures of up to 3,600 TB to match. Available now, Seagate’s FireCuda 520 comes in three capacities: 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB. MSRPs are $124.99 (500GB), $249.99 (1TB), and $429.99 (2TB).

FireCuda 510 SSD Refresh

While the FireCuda 520 launch steals the spotlight, Seagate’s FireCuda 510 PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD gets some love, too. Today, Seagate told us that it is refreshing the FireCuda 510 with new hardware. First, Seagate added in a black PCB to appeal for those concerned about aesthetics. Who likes ugly blue and green PCBs distracting from your blacked-out or red accented gaming build, anyways? Seagate also swapped out the NAND from 64L BiCS3 to the latest Kioxia 96L BiCS4 flash. They have also added in a 500GB capacity point because high-capacity models are a hot seller.

Barracuda 510 SSD Refresh

Just as the FireCuda is expanding to smaller capacities, the company’s mainstream PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD, the BarraCuda 510, is getting a 1TB model. Like the FireCuda, the BarraCuda features a Seagate-validated Phison E12 SSD controller and the latest Kioxia 96L BiCS4 flash, but not the fancy black PCB.

The main difference between the BarraCuda 510 and FireCuda 510, other than aesthetics and capacity points, is that the BarraCuda is a single-sided M.2 SSD optimized for flexible compatibility, while FireCuda is a double-sided M.2 solution optimized for enhanced performance and greater endurance.

BarraCuda 120 SSD Refresh

To conclude the refresh list, we finally have the BarraCuda 120 SSD. Seagate’s BarraCuda 120 is a 2.5 in × 7mm SATA 6Gb/s SSD that replaces the previous BarraCuda SSD. 

Seagate replaced the internals with new and up-to-date hardware. The company also swapped out the aging S10 SSD controller and replaced it with a Phison S12 SATA controller to ready it for 3D NAND. Seagate will have two sources of NAND for this SSD. Depending on inventory, the BarraCuda 120 will come with either Kioxia 96L BiCS4 TLC or Micron 64L TLC to ensure consistent supply. 

Source:https://www.seagate.com/consumer/play/firecuda-gaming-dock/

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-announces-thunderbolt-3-gaming-dock-and-new-firecuda-ssds

Thoughts: While it's true that large multi-port USB docks with as much I/O as a desktop exists for a few years already, I will wait for the reviews to see if this is truly an epic gamer moment or not. The new PCIe4 SSD has me worried, if even a corsair MP600 have overheating issues, how is something like that without a heatsink going to handle?

[Fasauceome]

NVMe SSD for gamers? It's only for gamers if it's cheap... like really cheap. Seriously, gaming PCs do not benefit from really fast, really expensive storage. The price points they listed aren't very compelling imo.

[Velcade]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

NVMe SSD for gamers? It's only for gamers if it's cheap... like really cheap. Seriously, gaming PCs do not benefit from really fast, really expensive storage.

Don't you want to be able to game harder regardless of price?

 

[RollinLower]

i mean, it was only inevitable. gamer everything and you get $$$$$

still tough, doesn't Lenovo already have docks like this?

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Velcade said:

Don't you want to be able to game harder

believe me, I'm already a hard gamer >:)

[Jurrunio]

The dock is more of a fancy impractical peripheral if you ask me, tho I'd like to see more decently made SSDs out there. Pricing... we'll see

[Velcade]

3 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

believe me, I'm already a hard gamer >:)

I find I focus more on the task at hand when I'm hard as well.

[Touch My Hamm]

Can you count RGB lighting for SSD's as Gamers SSD? I am not sure where I stand on what all makes something "Gamer"... I would assume aspects that make the computer faster, Cheaper, and have weird gimmicks like turbo buttons...

 

Does the USB Hub reduce latency introduced by the dock? That is the only thing I can imagine it being Gamer?

[Drak3]

Okay, but why does it look like a Duracell battery with a cap covering most of the orange?

[Murasaki]

firecuda sounds stupid..

[Deli]

No RGB?? No deal? Nowadays nothing works without RGB.

 

And HDD in 2020?? At least give us Sata SSD.

 

BTW, being sarcastic.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Murasaki said:

firecuda sounds stupid..

Like maybe you had takis powder on your fingers and had to take a leak..

[rcmaehl]

Seagate: Shows a glowing orange enclosure

Darn, I was hoping for a handwarmer too.

[Dabombinable]

Yay...another dock/caddy from Segate that'll turn the HDD into a furnace (my first 2TB HDD had to go through 65^oc temps in its caddy).

39 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Seagate: Shows a glowing orange enclosure

Darn, I was hoping for a handwarmer too.

Don't count it out yet. It could still have the capability.

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, RollinLower said:

i mean, it was only inevitable. gamer everything and you get $$$$$

still tough, doesn't Lenovo already have docks like this?

It worked very well for companies like razor, corsair, kingston krakken etc

[seagate_surfer]

Well, it's hard to find an enclosure with Thunderbolt 3 port adapted to people willing to use their NVMe devices externally. At least for them there is one more option now and with RGB.

[TrigrH]

1 hour ago, seagate_surfer said:

Well, it's hard to find an enclosure with Thunderbolt 3 port adapted to people willing to use their NVMe devices externally. At least for them there is one more option now and with RGB.

Does the nvme drive slot come with a cooling solution?

Does the dock have onboard support to use the nvme drive as a cache for the HDD?

 

IMO high capacity QLC drives seem to be a better choice for storing games.

[NumLock21]

4TB at 7200RPM. So I guess these are using their Barracuda Pro HDDs.

[seagate_surfer]

43 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

Does the nvme drive slot come with a cooling solution?

No, I didn't see any in the product specs or data sheet. I have checked NVMe cooling solutions before and sincerely you can skip that part.

43 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

Does the dock have onboard support to use the nvme drive as a cache for the HDD?

What do you mean by that? With what software? Intel RST is exclusive to its own platform and the other solutions such as PrimoCache and StoreMI will also have their own limitations, PrimoCache being the one with more versatility and most likely, you can use it to configure an external device as a cache, but if I assure you this I would be lying, it would be a matter of trying to check if it is compatible with external devices. I guess it does... 

43 minutes ago, TrigrH said:

IMO high capacity QLC drives seem to be a better choice for storing games.

That's right but not quite, told me one of my teachers once. The video games are no heavy load for any storage device, the type of information or data that video games handle depends more on the graphics than on the storage device, so even an HDD will give you the same FPSs as an SSD, obviously an SSD will load a game much faster than other machines that use HDD but that would be the biggest benefit, that games installed in an SSD will have a shorter waiting time to open them but that's it. The endurance or reliability of QLC is inferior to that of its predecessors, so you may think it would be appropriate not to give them intensive use like gaming, but then again, SSDs and even QLC devices support many written Bytes/IOPS to the point where it is difficult to achieve the daily limitations they can withstand, even by defragmenting every day an SSD it would be hard to reach the limits of the writing cycles of a SSD including QLC.

[WereCat]

7 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

NVMe SSD for gamers? It's only for gamers if it's cheap... like really cheap. Seriously, gaming PCs do not benefit from really fast, really expensive storage. The price points they listed aren't very compelling imo.

B... but... I want to capture my gameplay in uncompressed 4k 4:4:4 HDR quality! 

[seagate_surfer]

14 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

4TB at 7200RPM. So I guess these are using their Barracuda Pro HDDs.

What it has is the slot for an NVMe M.2 SSD.

[WereCatf]

11 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

That's right but not quite, told me one of my teachers once.

I have to ask, why do you say it's right but not quite, and then proceed to say nothing about why their comment wasn't entirely accurate? Your drivel only backs the comment up instead of addressing your claim of it not being quite right.

[seagate_surfer]

2 minutes ago, WereCat said:

B... but... I want to capture my gameplay in uncompressed 4k 4:4:4 HDR quality! 

If you want to do it quickly and easily, go with a NVMe then, that is one of the features of this format, move the heavy files as video in less time than with other SSDs.

[seagate_surfer]

6 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

I have to ask, why do you say it's right but not quite, and then proceed to say nothing about why their comment wasn't entirely accurate? Your drivel only backs the comment up instead of addressing your claim of it not being quite right.

Since when the use of an specific type of SSD brings you benefits for gaming?:

20 minutes ago, seagate_surfer said:

...The endurance or reliability of QLC is inferior to that of its predecessors, so you may think it would be appropriate not to give them intensive use like gaming, but then again, SSDs and even QLC devices support many written Bytes/IOPS to the point where it is difficult to achieve the daily limitations they can withstand...

Do a RAID configuration with NVMe devices (completely unnecessary) and perform an intensive gaming session, then use the same computer to play from an HDD, you will not see any difference in your gaming experience independently the type of storage device you are using even when you use one storage device with lower endurance.

[WereCatf]

1 minute ago, seagate_surfer said:

Since when the use of an specific type of SSD brings you benefits for gaming?

Depends a little on one's definition, but if you consider better capacity-per-dollar as a benefit -- many people do still have terribly slow Internet-connections, especially in third-world countries like the US, so the fewer times one has to redownload a game over the years, the better -- while still keeping NVMe read-speeds, then QLC could be argued to be beneficial for that task over other types -- write-speeds are irrelevant, when it comes to gaming, after all.

 

HDDs obviously have the higher capacity-per-dollar, but can't do NVMe read-speeds.