Article · AI translation
Thanks to IT Home reader 华南吴彦祖 for the tip!
IT Home reported on November 10 that Seagate has released an external storage device called the FireCuda Forge, seeking to combine the high read and write speeds of an SSD with the low cost of a high-capacity mechanical hard drive. It is also the first product to feature Seagate's new Alkemi intelligent storage platform, which can learn users' data usage habits and automatically move files that are in use or accessed more frequently to the faster SSD.
The FireCuda Forge is now available through Seagate's official online store in 2 capacity options: the version with an 8TB mechanical hard drive costs $699 (IT Home note: approximately 4,674 yuan at the current exchange rate), while the version with a 20TB mechanical hard drive costs $899 (approximately 6,011 yuan at the current exchange rate). Users can replace the mechanical hard drive in either model themselves.
However, the device does not come with an NVMe SSD; users need to purchase one separately. With supplies of memory and storage chips currently tight and prices rising, buying an SSD separately will further increase the actual cost of the complete setup.
Combining a mechanical hard drive with flash memory is not a new idea. Seagate has sold hybrid hard drives with built-in flash memory for decades. What sets the FireCuda Forge apart is that users can choose the mechanical hard drive and SSD they use with it themselves.
In how it works, it is somewhat similar to some network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Those devices let users install an SSD to temporarily cache frequently accessed data and improve read speeds. Seagate says, however, that the FireCuda Forge works differently.
At its core is the new Alkemi technology. Using machine learning, it dynamically moves files between the mechanical hard drive and SSD based on the user's current workload and the data they actually need to access.
As users' needs and tasks change, the system automatically readjusts how data is distributed between the 2 drives. To users, however, the entire device always appears as a single storage drive connected to the computer, so they do not need to manage manually where files are stored on the 2 drives.
In terms of performance, the FireCuda Forge offers maximum read speeds of 2500MB/s and maximum write speeds of 2000MB/s. The device supports computers running Windows 11 or macOS 26 and later.