Seagate FireCuda Forge: a 20TB hard drive with an empty SSD slot

How does the Seagate FireCuda Forge work?

You don't have to shuffle files between the two yourself. Seagate uses a system called Alkemi that watches how you use the drive, works out which data you open most and moves it to the SSD. When other files become the favourites, they swap places. The whole thing shows up as one pool of storage, so you never have to think about where a file actually lives.

Seagate pitches it at gamers who want the games they're currently playing on the SSD while the rest of the library stays on the hard disk. The other target group is content creators, who edit video projects and then archive them for the long run.

If the idea sounds familiar, it is. Drives that combine a spinning disk with flash memory, known as SSHDs, were common before plain SSDs got faster and more reliable and made them largely obsolete. Seagate now wants to give the concept a second life.

How much does the FireCuda Forge cost?

This is the catch. The 8 TB version costs just under 700 euros, the 20 TB version 930 euros, and neither comes with an NVMe SSD. You have to buy the fast storage separately and install it yourself. A 1 TB NVMe SSD from Seagate costs around 160 euros.

If you want, you can also swap out the preinstalled hard disk. Either way, read the spec sheet carefully before you order, because the price on the box buys you only half of the hybrid.