Seagate's 2.5-inch 2TB FireCuda

Seagate has launched a new SATA 6Gb/s hybrid mobile drive, the 2TB FireCuda. This is claimed to be the "fastest, thinnest and lightest 2TB hard drive on the market today". Those are all good things, and Seagate claims it comes at "a great price" too.

So the new 2TB FireCuda is a hybrid, or SSHD, drive that augments its large capacity with 8GB of speedy onboard flash. That's not a great percentage of flash but Seagate claims that its Multi-Tier Caching algorithms "continuously analyse how you use your system," to make sure the most commonly used files are stored in the flash portion of the drive. Beyond the performance perks, the new firmware is optimised to make sure the drive platters spin down when not needed and this feature is promised to "cut your power consumption without sacrificing any performance".

In Seagate's own testing the FireCuda achieved the following performance results:

Versus 2.5-inch 5400RPM/7200RPM HDD

Game Load Test: 140% Faster/50% faster using PCMark 7 system storage gaming test.

Application Load Test: 450% Faster/300% faster using PCMark 7 system storage starting applications test.

Windows 7 Boot Time: 35% Faster/25% faster on an i5 laptop with 8GB of RAM, tested using Microsoft's utility.

Buyers of the 2.5-inch 2TB FireCuda get a 5-year warranty. Seagate hasn't provided us with pricing and availability information.

Seagate's 5TB BarraCuda mobile drives

Seagate launched the 5TB BarraCuda SATA 6Gb/s mobile drives alongside the 2TB FireCuda today. These HDDs are available in either a super thin 7mm mobile or laptop upgrade design, and a 15mm design for external solutions. The 5TB BarraCuda mobile uses Multi-Tier Caching algorithms, like the FireCuda mentioned above. However, without a flash storage portion, caching is limited to utilising 128MB of onboard DRAM and Seagate's media cache technology.

The new 5TB drives join other mobile BarraCudas ranging from 500GB, to 1TB, 2TB, 3TB and 4TB. Seagate promises the best price point per terabyte and millimetre compared to competitive storage options. Unfortunately we didn't receive pricing and availability details from Seagate this morning. Buyers of the 2.5-inch 5TB BarraCuda get a 2-year warranty.