Seagate launched two new external drives this fall: the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive and the FireCuda Gaming Hub. If the second one (with a capacity of 8 TB and more) is intended for storing large-scale data and requires additional power for operation, the FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive is the most mobile device that needs a USB 3.2 Gen 1 connection. Accordingly, such a drive may be interesting, including for those who like to play on a laptop. The cost of the youngest version for 1 TB is about 5500 rubles.
Design and equipment
The box contains the HDD itself, a cable for connecting to USB-A (45 cm long), instructions and several branded stickers. The disc is made in a thin body slightly thicker than the average smartphone. Although the coating is matte, fingerprints still remain.
On one end of the disc there is a single connector and an LED indicator of operation. On the other hand, there is a LED strip with adjustable glow.
It is clear that to connect a disk, you just need to connect it to the connector of a computer or laptop. The root directory already has an installer that, when launched, mounts the proprietary Seagate Toolkit utility into the OS.
Features and customization
The Seagate Toolkit is primarily interesting for its ability to quickly and easily configure the most popular scenarios for using an external drive. For example, create a backup or restore files from it. You can also create mirrored storages (with two-way sync).
The options for integrating into the game system are also interesting. You can customize the glow of the LED strip both through its own FireCuda RGB option and using Razer Chroma RGB technology. If you just want to change the color, the first option is enough, the second is more useful for synchronizing the backlight with other gaming equipment. You need to choose one thing.
The FireCuda RGB menu contains almost the entire range of settings. You can change the nature of the backlight (ripple, constant light, blinking, shift), select the brightness and a specific color from the RGB panel. Or set a rainbow glow. If desired, the strip can be turned off – by the way, so is the status indicator.
Testing
The FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive, despite the additional illumination, is a regular external hard drive. Not a fast solution, and synthetic tests confirm this.
In fact, it took us 29 minutes to copy a 45 GB test archive. The speed remained stable, minor drawdowns did not particularly affect the result.
It should also be noted that the disk is almost completely silent. And given that it should be used with gaming PCs and laptops (a priori not quiet), which are rarely quiet, a working FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive will only show itself with the included LEDs.
The new drive is offered in 3 different versions: 1, 2 or 5 TB. The youngest model, which we had on the test, costs about 5,500 rubles.
An external SSD of the same size and without any backlighting will cost about twice as much. At the same time, similar “non-gaming” HDDs will cost a maximum of 1000 rubles. cheaper. So the FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive is not an overpriced product, and is quite suitable primarily for owners of gaming laptops with small SSDs who need to expand storage for new games.
If you still need fast SSDs, it makes sense to take a look at our selection of models that cost up to 10,000 rubles.
