Seagate improves SSD line-up with faster Barracuda 530 PCIe 4.0 SSD

Seagate has recently added a new SSD to its portfolio, the BarraCuda 530 (not to be confused with the FireCuda 530). This PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD is expected to considerably improve over the BarraCuda 520, enough to let it stand toe-to-toe with other top-performing PCIe 4.0 SSDs currently available.

Although the BarraCuda 530 (via Tom's Hardware) is still a PCIe 4.0 x4 drive like its predecessor, Seagate has followed the NVMe 2.0 standard this time. The company hasn't officially announced it yet, but the BarraCuda 530 is now available on its website. Details about the new drive are still limited, but like many other similarly-specced SSDs, we believe it's powered by a Phison PCIe 4.0 SSD controller (the new E27T, perhaps) and 3D TLC NAND. Seagate's BarraCuda 530 is available in three capacities: 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB.

On paper, Seagate seems to have made significant improvements to the BarraCuda 530's performance. At maximum capacity, the drive can achieve sequential read and write speeds of up to 7,400 MB/s and 6,400 MB/s, respectively. However, Seagate does not provide the random read/write speeds for each SSD capacity.

The power usage hasn't changed much. The average idle power consumption is 50 mW, the same for both drives. However, the maximum average active power varies somewhat depending on the capacity. The BarraCuda 530 and BarraCuda 520 2TB models consume about the same (5.7W), but the BarraCuda 530 1TB and 512GB use slightly more than their Barracuda 520 counterparts.

The BarraCuda 530's endurance has significantly improved, though, with the 2TB model handling up to 1,200 TBW, while the 1TB and 512GB models have 600 TBW and 300 TBW, respectively. That's more than double the endurance of the 2TB and 1TB drives and 1.5 times that of the 512GB model. Seagate offers a five-year warranty for the BarraCuda 530.

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KitGuru says: Do you think the Barracuda 530 will stand out in the PCIe 4.0 high-end mainstream market?

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