Firecuda 520 Vs 970 Evo Plus

Go to page:

1TB Performance Results

Comparing Products

We put Seagate's FireCuda 520 upward against some of the all-time SSDs available. With its 3D XPoint retentivity, Intel's Optane SSD 905P puts the smackdown on our comparing pool with the lowest response times, only it'due south not the fastest at everything. Corsair'due south Force MP600 gives information technology a good run for its money with a similar design as the FireCuda 520, and Samsung'due south 970 PRO (Phoenix + 64L MLC V-NAND) and 970 EVO Plus (Phoenix + 9xL TLC V-NAND) are both trigger-happy high-end contenders.

We even threw in the WD Black SN750 (in-house NVMe controller + Kioxia 64L TLC), Adata XPG SX8200 Pro (SM2262EN + Micron 64L TLC), and a Corsair Force MP510 (Phison E12 + Kioxia 64L TLC) for mainstream comparisons. To represent a few of the cheapest NVMe SSDs available, we included the Intel SSD 660p (SM2263EN + Micron 64L QLC) equally well as Crucial'south MX500 (SM2258 + Micron 64L TLC). We besides include a SATA SSD to compare the bang for your cadet. Finally, we added in a 6TB WD Black, a 7200 RPM HDD.

Game Scene Loading - Concluding Fantasy XIV

The Terminal Fantasy 14 StormBlood benchmark is a free real-world game benchmark that hands and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.

The E16'south faster PCIe 4.0 interface didn't seem to help Seagate's FireCuda 520 at all during gaming, merely information technology did evidence improved performance over the previous-gen E12-powered Corsair MP510. Overall, it scored similarly to the other loftier-end and mainstream contenders as it took 6th place in-game scene loading.

Transfer Rates – DiskBench

We utilise the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer functioning with our ain custom 50GB block of data. Our data set includes 31,227 files of various types, similar pictures, PDFs, and videos. We re-create the files to a new folder and and so follow upwardly with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5 GB file.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware )

Seagate'south FireCuda 520 scored very well during both the 50GB re-create and half-dozen.5GB read tests. With re-create performance that is about equally strong equally the Intel Optane 905P's and ane of the fastest sequential read results yet, the FireCuda 520 is among the fastest drives.

Trace Testing – PCMark 8 Storage Test 2.0

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware )

PCMark 8 is a trace-based benchmark that uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft, and Battlefield 3 to measure the operation of storage devices in real-world scenarios.

In PCMark 8, Seagate's FireCuda 520 near tied the Corsair Force MP600 for third place. Both drives delivered similar bandwidth overall, nearly matching the Samsung 970 PRO. Compared to an HDD, the FireCuda 520 delivered an astonishing 47x comeback in bandwidth.

Trace Testing – SPECworkstation 3

Like PCMark eight, SPECworkstation iii is a trace-based benchmark, simply it is designed to push the organisation harder by measuring workstation functioning in professional person applications. The full suite consists of more 30 workloads, just we've opted to only run the storage benchmark which uses only 15 of them and categorizes the results into five market segments for scoring: Media & Amusement, Product Development, Life Sciences, Energy, and General Operations.

(Image credit: Tom'southward Hardware )

Under heavier prosumer workloads, the FireCuda 520 delivered similar results to the Force MP600 and scored third place overall. It completed the exam just slightly faster than the 970 PRO, or almost 3 times faster than an entry-level SATA or NVMe SSD. And, information technology shaved hours off the time an HDD requires to complete the aforementioned workload.

Synthetics - ATTO

ATTO is a simple and free awarding that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Information technology also gives us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.

(Prototype credit: Tom's Hardware )

We tested the FireCuda at a QD of 1 to represent most 24-hour interval-to-24-hour interval file accesses. At the smaller file sizes below 32KB, it was neck and neck with the competition, merely performance soars with larger files. Peak numbers reach 4.viii/3.9 GBps at the 8MB test file size, shaming its PCIe 3.0 competitors.

Constructed Testing - iometer

iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool that vendors ofttimes use to measure the performance of their devices

(Epitome credit: Tom's Hardware )

Seagate's FireCuda 520 achieved peak sequential performance of near 5.0/four.3 GBps read/write in iometer, leaving it in a league of its ain with the MP600. Random operation at QD1 was very respectable, and response times were very proficient, too, meaning the drive is enough snappy. And, while meaningless for consumer tasks and even well-nigh prosumer workloads, its peak random performance hits 604,000/544,000 read/write IOPS.

Sustained Sequential Write Performance & Temperature

Official write specifications are only function of the performance film. Most SSD makers implement a write enshroud, which is a fast area of (unremarkably) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming information. Sustained write speeds can endure tremendously once the workload spills exterior of the enshroud and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We employ iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for fifteen minutes to measure out both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.

When possible, we as well log the temperature of the drive via the S.M.A.R.T. data to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts operation. Deport in mind that results volition vary based on the workload and ambience air temperature.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware )

Seagate'southward FireCuda 520 absorbed nearly 370GB of data earlier its write performance tanked. Once the pSLC cache is full, the write speed fell to an average of 600 MBps. Subsequently letting it idle for a flake, the enshroud should more often than not recover. Later thirty seconds, the bulldoze recovered sixteen-20GB, and after but a minute, it recovered 63GB of pSLC space. Bear in mind, the enshroud chapters is dynamic. After an intense write workload, it only recovered 118GB of cache after idling for 5 minutes, and merely 100GB later idling up to xxx minutes.

After writing over 300GB of data at in one case and saturating its bandwidth, the FireCuda 520'due south SMART data reported a superlative controller temperature of 79C, but nosotros measured about 85C on our infrared thermometer. However, the drive didn't throttle afterward writing over 300GB of data at in one case with no airflow in a 25C surroundings.

Power Consumption

We apply the Quarch HD Programmable Ability Module to gain a deeper understanding of ability characteristics. Idle power consumption is a very important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a new bulldoze for your laptop. Some SSDs can swallow watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload ability consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of ability consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A bulldoze might eat more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drib into an idle land faster, which ultimately saves ability.

(Prototype credit: Tom'due south Hardware )

Power consumption was very similar to well-nigh mainstream NVMe SSDs, and even lower than that of the Samsung 970s and Adata XPG SX8200 Pro (on boilerplate). The 520 surpassed the WD Blackness SN750's efficiency score and pushed alee into second place with a similar score to the MP600. And, when idling, it consumed very little power. We measured just 64mW when the bulldoze was halfway total of information.

More than: Best SSDs

More: How We Test HDDs And SSDs

MORE: All SSD Content

Sean is a Contributing Editor at Tom's Hardware US, roofing storage hardware.