Seagate FireCuda 1 TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6 Gb/s Flash Accelerated 64 MB Cache for Gaming PC Laptop (ST1000DX002)

Still in use after all this time, has not let me down

Nicely impressed with this. Used as part of a PC upgrade to replace an existing barracuda hard drive. This drive is extremely quiet and is an excellent compliment to the relatively small SSD used to boot windows 10 with documents and games installed on this drive. Computer runs very smoothly and games are still pretty quick to load. Supposedly the software from Seagate is very good at choosing which files to put on the SSD bit (using latency as well as usage). Initial benchmark tests looked very good:-----------------------------------------------------------------------CrystalDiskMark 6.0.0 x64 (UWP) (C) 2007-2017-----------------------------------------------------------------------* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytesSequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 233.968 MB/sSequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 178.375 MB/sRandom Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 5.972 MB/s [ 1458.0 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 4.873 MB/s [ 1189.7 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 9.859 MB/s [ 2407.0 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 4.892 MB/s [ 1194.3 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 14.274 MB/s [ 3484.9 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 4.789 MB/s [ 1169.2 IOPS]Test : 50 MiB [E: 0.0% (0.2/931.4 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]Date : 2018/01/08 21:02:15OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 16299] (x64)Compared to the SSD:-----------------------------------------------------------------------CrystalDiskMark 6.0.0 x64 (UWP) (C) 2007-2017-----------------------------------------------------------------------* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytesSequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 533.603 MB/sSequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 459.438 MB/sRandom Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 252.598 MB/s [ 61669.4 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 318.523 MB/s [ 77764.4 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 253.375 MB/s [ 61859.1 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 323.097 MB/s [ 78881.1 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 247.609 MB/s [ 60451.4 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 176.876 MB/s [ 43182.6 IOPS]Test : 50 MiB [C: 38.2% (85.2/223.1 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]Date : 2018/01/08 20:44:04OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 16299] (x64)And the old barracuda:-----------------------------------------------------------------------CrystalDiskMark 6.0.0 x64 (UWP) (C) 2007-2017-----------------------------------------------------------------------* MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s]* KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytesSequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 59.011 MB/sSequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 58.581 MB/sRandom Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 1.507 MB/s [ 367.9 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T=12) : 1.439 MB/s [ 351.3 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 1.522 MB/s [ 371.6 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 6) : 1.375 MB/s [ 335.7 IOPS]Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.547 MB/s [ 377.7 IOPS]Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 1.399 MB/s [ 341.6 IOPS]Test : 50 MiB [E: 0.1% (0.1/74.5 GiB)] (x5) [Interval=5 sec]Date : 2018/01/08 20:32:31OS : Windows 10 Professional [10.0 Build 16299] (x64)

Well it came time to upgrade my aging PC hard drive and I was originally going to get an SSD but after a lot of research I decided to opt for an SSHD instead....but why?The reason is that in theory at least the SSHD provides the sweet spot in cost versus speed versus volume.The right solution for you will depend on how you use your PC.I am primarily a gamer with a large library who tends to play a few games for a long time and this means that all I really need is a large drive capable of loading a few programs quickly and this is exactly what this SSHD provides.The relatively small amount (8GB) of NAND memory is enough to store and quickly load my Windows 8.1 OS and my favorite games.The SSHD uses built in algorithms to identify which files are used most often and stores them in the NAND for quick retrieval.So to get the most out of your SSHD as quickly as possible it's a good idea to reboot your computer and your favorite programs often during the first few days of use.This is what I have been doing for the past few days(about a dozen reboots) and I'm noticing a marked reduction in PC boot and game launch times already.So far my average PC boot time (power on to desktop) has went from 45 seconds to 36 which is fantastic and better than I could have hoped for and game launch times are also down although this is difficult to measure precisely but I'd guess about 5-10 seconds on average.Another benefit of this SSHD is the ease of installation. I purchased this to replace my stock 1 TB Toshiba HDD that has served me well these last two years and has a lot valuable data on it. The plan was to clone it and replace it with the SSHD keeping the original as a backup.Everything went smoothly and after cloning it was very easy just to unplug and remove the old HDD from the PC and slide in the SSHD without the drama of caddies or adapters. All I had to do was plug in the SATA power and data cables and reboot the PC.To my relief the SSHD was instantly recognised by the BIOS and OS( windows 8.1) and booted as normal and all my precious files were there and working perfectly too!In summary this is a great SSHD at a very reasonable price and would highly recommend it to others IF they use their PC in the same way I do.So remember there is no one size fits all solution. The best product for you depends on how you use your PC, what speed you want/need and how much you are willing to pay.I hope this helps anyone planning to upgrade their HDD to make an informed decision. Good luck.

UPDATE:One week on and I just wanted to add an update to my original review.This is a fast SSHD much faster than the original 750Gb standard 5400 spin HD in my Dell Laptop, which has now been rejuvenated. It now even boots up a few seconds faster than my 8 core Android tablet which was the go to device when I needed info on the net quickly. The fan still runs for very long periods for no apparent reason before stopping for a rest, then off it goes again, but so far everything else about this SSHD appears to be as claimed by the makers. Its is also very quiet in operation. Were it not for the minor issue with the fan, I would have given 5 stars and as no one else has mentioned the problem, it may just be a minor compatibility issue with my laptop. I know there is an issue as when I temporally reinstalled my original HD, the fan worked normally again. Anyway a well deserved 4 stars and I would definitely recommend.Fitted to my Dell Inspiron 7520 laptop which has an Intel i5 cpu and then did a fresh install of Windows 10 pro, all without a problem. Copied over files from the original 750gb HD, which is still good but I wanted something faster which this FireCuda drive promised. It is a little faster, but not the claimed 5x. It does boot a lot faster than the old HD so I guess thats down to the 8gb of builtin solid state. I would say overall performance is only twice as fast at best, at least on my laptop. The big problem I have is the cooling fan now runs constantly which means the cpu is running hotter than before and this also reduces the battery life. No idea why this has happened but I dont want to take a chance so I think I will return for a refund.