The Seagate FireCuda 530 launched in 2020, around the same time as the PS5, making it a favorite to enter Sony's system. While it's no longer absolutely the fastest in its class, performance is still top notch, proving that the top-end Gen 4.0 never slows down.
There isn't much room for innovation when you're pushing up to 7000MB/s read and write. The Seagate FireCuda 530 came out strong with those numbers as the benchmark to beat. Few have it all these years later, easily making it one of the best SSDs for PS5. Even better, its once monstrous price has been reduced significantly.
Today's best Seagate FireCuda 530 1TB deals
Price and Availability
- Seagate FireCuda 530 (500GB SSD) at Amazon for €69 (opens in a new tab)
The Seagate FireCuda 530 is widely available in the US, UK and Australia in all capacities with heat sink. Prices start at €69 / €55 / AU$119 for the 500GB version and go up to €129 / €103,99 / AU$217 (1TB), €239,99 / €189 / 414 AU$0,78 .2 (529TB) and €449,99 / €984,75 / AU$4 (4.0TB). That's a bit cheaper than the original launch price, but it's still a bit more expensive than other Gen XNUMX models with similar performance.
Design and features
My Seagate FireCuda 530 review drive is the 1TB model that comes with the PS5 SSD heatsink. Its thick aluminum casing tightly encloses the silicon and driver while allowing for maximum heat dissipation. This is also important, as the PS2's native M.5 port doesn't have any sort of passive cooling per se. Although a bit bulky and heavy, this extra weight is great for staying in place during installation with plenty of clearance once the cover is reinstalled. This is one of the smartest heat sinks I've seen on an NVMe SSD to date.
As expected from a high-performance Gen 4.0 model, the Seagate FireCuda 530 uses the exceptional Phison E-18 controller, and this is how it can achieve up to 7000 MB/s read and write speeds. He was impressive in 2020, and even three years later he's still going strong. There's also 176-layer Micron TLC flash memory that few newer drives, like the Kingston Fury Renegade, have also used more than two years later. We talk a lot about the ceiling of what's possible with this current generation of NVMe models, so it's wise to hit it out of the park as soon as possible.
As is the case with NVMe SSDs, there's a five-year warranty here, and write endurance is slightly better than the competition. Scales from 640 TBW (500 GB), 1275 TBW (1 TB), 2550 TBW (2 TB), and 5100 TBW (4 TB). It's also significantly taller than the WD Black SN850 and PNY CS3140 models. We don't usually see such great numbers, and that adds to the longevity of a drive that will be able to hold its own through a long period of heavy use.
Performance
Gaming on the PS5 with the Seagate FireCuda 530 is as quick and painless as you'd expect, considering what's on the silicon here. In my tests, it got a read score from Sony's official benchmark tool of 6539 MB/s, making it one of the fastest I've ever used.
File transfer times were among the most impressive I've seen of all my SSD tests, with particular strengths with some of the biggest PS5 games. Horizon: Forbidden West, with its 99,35 GB file size, went from internal storage to NVMe SSD in just 1 minute and 19 seconds (or 79 seconds). Equally impressive is Death Stranding: Director's Cut (69,35GB), which transferred in just 54 seconds. That's over 1 GB/sec, which is more than enough to copy your entire game library in just a few minutes.
It's a similar story with smaller file sizes where the speed of the Seagate Firecuda 530 really shines. This is evident with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (47,29 GB) and Dead Space (31,07 GB), which transferred in 39 seconds and 27 seconds, respectively. Loading into games was similarly brief, with the Dead Space greeting leading the charge from the main menu to the game in less than 3 seconds. That's even faster than the already almost non-existent internal storage times. Death Stranding: Director's Cut was almost as fast, with less than 6 seconds between the menu and the open world.
Should I buy the Seagate FireCuda 530?
Buy it if...
You want a PS5 SSD that will last
The Seagate FireCuda 530 offers best-in-class write endurance for its price and performance, which means it's a drive that will last a long time.
You want lightning-fast performance
Inside the PS5, the Seagate FireCuda clocks in at 6539MB/s, making it one of the fastest NVMe drives I've gotten my hands on in all my years of testing SSDs. .
Don't buy if...
You plan to opt for a smaller capacity
You can only really get the most out of the Seagate Firecuda 530 with 1TB or more, so if you're looking for a 500GB SSD, you can get a cheaper one that will do the same job.
Seagate FireCuda 530 Price Comparison