Seagate FireCuda 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD – 2.5 Inch SATA 6GB/s Flash Accelerated for Gaming PC Laptop - Frustration Free Packaging (ST2000LX001)

When reading product reviews, I usually check the unfavorable reviews, first, to see what the biggest issues are with the product. With this drive, I found negative review after negative review where the buyers' primary complaint seemed to have something to do with them believing they received the WRONG product!First off, the models "ST500LX025" (500GB), "ST1000LX015" (1TB), and "ST2000LX001" (2TB) are the model numbers for the NEWEST version of the drives. Amazon isn't shipping out the "old" version. The "Z" part of the model number seen on the packaging has to do with the fact that these drives now come in a basic brown box, instead of the colorful retail packaging.Also, the FireCuda line is now called "Compute" (see Seagate's website and product manuals to confirm), so receiving a drive that doesn't say "Gaming" does not mean you got the "wrong drive", it means you got a more recently-manufactured drive with an updated label.None of those reviewers even bothered looking up model numbers or drive information to see if they actually got the "wrong" product. In fact, as of writing this, the "Top Review" for this drive is a 1-star review from someone that doesn't know how to turn off their OS's drive spin-down and also incorrectly claimed they received an old model. The product they received was fine, and the review actually highlighted their own, personal flaws, yet their 1-star review now says "55 people found this helpful" under it. Really? THAT review helped people?For an actual product review, so far it seems like a standard 5400 RPM drive. Yes, it is 5400 RPM, and it also uses Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR). SMR drives have reduced write speeds compared to standard Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) drives, but read speeds are pretty similar. That's one reason why this drive was marketed as a "gaming" drive. You install a game once, but read from it many times. Read speed is the important part, and so with that SMR should work just fine. This drive is not recommended if you write tons of data and need the fastest speeds. For that, a 7200 PMR drive or SSD would be recommended.The limited benchmarking I've done make the drive look like a typical hard drive. I get around 140MB/sec speeds from the outside of the platters, and only around 60MB/sec on the inside of the platters. Programs like CrystalDiskMark may give a good idea of what kinda of speeds to expect from an SSD (where read/write speeds are consistent on all available storage), but can give quite misleading results on a hard drive (where speeds are a LOT slower near the inside of the platters or when data is highly fragmented).In most scenarios, this will operate as a standard 2TB 5400 RPM drive. However, some frequently-accessed data will be saved in the 8GB NAND cache, allowing for much faster loads. This only works with data that is repeatedly accessed. Playing one game over and over yields the best results. The first load with be normal speeds, but each load after that should be quicker and quicker, eventually getting near-SSD speeds. However, if you frequently rotate games, playing different ones every day, you may not notice the speedier loading as much, as the cache will less likely to have the data you're trying to access.It's unfortunate that most of the submitted photos for this product are screenshots from CrystalDiskMark (which give no indication of read/write speeds for the entire drive) or pictures of the actual product received (from buyers that think they got the "wrong" drive).For a great, in-depth review of the drive's performance (with multiple benchmarks), do a Google search for the eTeknix' review of the ST2000LX001.I didn't give the product 5-stars for a few reasons. One, I figured my review might get lost in all the other 5-star reviews.Two, I felt there were compromises in the drive's design. Even if the drive performs GREAT as-is, how much better do you think the performance COULD HAVE been if it was a 7200 RPM drive? Or if it used regular magnetic storage instead of the slower "shingled" magnetic storage? Or if the NAND cache was 16 or 32GB instead of 8GB? Or if the RAM cache was 256MB instead of 128MB? Sure, the drive might cost a bit more, but it would still be way cheaper than an SSD with the same amount of storage space.

I was led to a screen saying there was a newer model. I bought that one, going off the model number, and received the old model number. Not sure if this is new old stock or something. Kinda feels sketchy.The drive is not fast. If you leave it for 5 minutes it has to spin up again. If you go between folders with lots of pictures, it is so slow it will say it's not responding for a few seconds, then it will slowly start loading.My computer is an MSI, with the OS running off an SSD, and my computer is fast and well maintained. The problems I am having are definitely the drive, not my pc. This will be replaced with a SSD and made into a backup drive I won't need to use everyday.

I installed the firecuda in my ps4pro, it was easy and perfect for making my ps4pro super fast now!!! With it being a hybrid SSHD!!!it's an amazing upgrade. And by super fast, I MEAN very very fast!!!! Thank you so so much!!! VERY MUCH WORTH my money!!! I have 2. One internally and the other externally. My ps4pro is basically a ps4.5!!! This will definitely hold me over until playstation 5 releases

Why is it the best in my opinion? Two reasons, I'm talking about the 2 TB only because if they made a 3 or 4 TB version I would have bought two of those instead. These are hybrid drives, that's the first reason and two is the price. I also had one in my previous build, it still works perfectly. I used to be a Western Digital fan when it came to mechanical harddrives but when I first discovered the Firecuda I had to try it out and I have been happy with the product. I use a Samsung 860 EVO SSD for a system drive but the Firecuda is my go to drive for games. SSD drives aren't really necessary for gaming, but they make excellent system drives.

It is a piece of junk. I am sending mine back. Here is why: I bought a SSD 1TB several years ago. It is almost full now with needed files. So I though I would get a 2TB Solid State HDD. So I bought the Seagate FireCuda 2TB SSHD, 2.5 inch laptop HDD.it is so slow that it is terrible. My 1 TB SSD is much faster. Do NOT buy this model. It is Junk. Sorry that I did not know the difference between SSD and SSHD when I purchased this junk The latter is nothing but an old fashioned motor driven mechanical HDD with a SS section to retrieve date; but then has to STORE the data in the HDD part. They are called "Hybrid". Thus the "slow" speed. Sad indeedI would strongly suggest you NOT purchase this model HDD. Better wait if you can until SSD's price come down and then buy only SSD's. Motor driven HDD's are going to be absolute soon believe me.

I have just bought one off your sshd drives. I would just like to say how disappointed I am with it the performance is, worse then my old hard drive this cannot be right I am sending some data for my seagate ST2000LX001, 2 TB FireCuda Gaming SSHD 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Hybrid Drive and my old WD Black 1TB the old drive out performs the firecuda by lots. I bought this drive thinking I was getting a fast hard drive and this is not caseSeagate FireCuda 2.5" 2TB-£8613,836 User benchmarks, average bench 47%2TB freeFirmware: SDM1SusWrite @10s intervals: 102 111 108 107 108 109 MB/s Performing as expected (45th percentile)44.9%AverageRead 48.7Write 76.4Mixed 59.7SusWrite 10854% 73.1 MB/s4K Read 1.14K Write 1.34K Mixed 1181% 1.13 MB/sWD Black 1TB (2010)-£119124,651 User benchmarks, average bench 57%850GB freeFirmware: 05.01D05SusWrite @10s intervals: 131 133 132 134 133 133 MB/s Performing way above expectations (96th percentile)76.7%Very goodRead 135Write 130Mixed 106SusWrite 13293% 126 MB/s4K Read 1.24K Write 1.74K Mixed 0.8170% 1.23 MB/s

This is a good Hard Drive and the issues are PlayStations fault I believe. BUT!! SeaGate have claimed here that it is indeed compatible with PS4 Without further details, so calling out for any other potential buyers like myself.I have the first version of the PS4 pro. I am also an experienced person with upgrading memory in computers and playstations. I successfully installed this drive and it was working fine for two months, until I started getting an error saying PS4 couldn’t start ( see picture). Followed every single tutorial I could find to resolve this without taking out the drive as I couldn’t bear having to download Modern Warfare AGAIN!!! I even tried using safe mode to reformat the disc and start from scratch, but simply the PS4 Pro decided it didn’t like the hard drive anymore. The resolution was to put back the original drive and start from scratch.After this series of events, I have done my research a bit deeper and the outcome is that superior drives like this FireCuda are absolutely pointless to install into a PS4, because it can’t do any of the faster speeds offered. 7200... nope! The PlayStation architecture isn’t as welcoming to hard discs as a computer. So paying for a superior hard disk like this is pointless to install into your PS4. Use it as an external drive, yes! But internal no.It now lives on in an external enclosure for my MAC.

Just upgraded my PlayStation 4 HDD with this one.I previously had already upgrade my PS4 with a Western Digital SSHD of 1TB.This drive is twice the capacity and so far I have seen comparable performance.Obviously this type of drive will cache into the 8GB NAND the file you use the most. So the firmware of the console will be as fast as an SSD is for your computer. Than, it will depends on the game you play. If you play only one game at a time, you'll see performance gain in loading. Obviously you'll need to start your game a few time in order for the SSHD firmware to identify important files to be cached on the NAND.If however you play X, then switch to Z, then switch to Y, you will never see a performance gain, you'll have normal mobile HDD performance, which isn't great.

Bought this to replace the 500GB HDD in my PS4 Slim as it had been reviewed as one of the best options if you didn’t want to fork out for a full SSD.Overall I am very pleased with the new drive. It was really easy to install and once I had reloaded the PS4 software it actually boots around 10 seconds quicker.The only downside I have and it’s why I’ve not given it 5 stars is that it is not completely quiet as the original PS4 drive was. I don’t know if that’s just my drive or if they are all like this but you can hear when the drive is working. It’s not that loud but it is noticeable.Overall I’d definitely recommend this drive if you don’t want to spend hundreds on an equivalent sized SSD.

I was finally starting to run out of space on my 500GB PS4, so I took the leap and upgraded to this drive instead.I don't know if it's any faster to load games compared to the standard drive (I didn't do any stopwatch tests but it's definitely possible) but certainly no slower. Now my console has tons of space and I don't need to deal with deleting games and then having to reinstall or re-download them if I want to go back to an older one.HDD upgrade on the PS4 is not very difficult and I believe is officially supported by Sony. It's pretty easy to open the console up just far enough to replace the hard drive but not have all of the internals exposed to risk. There are plenty of guides online, including on the official Playstation website, about how to do it (including copying your save-game data to a USB stick so you don't lose it).