Seagate’s new hybrid drive raises some old questions
Summary
Ars Technica reviews Seagate's FireCuda Forge hybrid drives, which combine a large HDD with a user-supplied NVMe SSD and are managed by the Alkemi intelligent storage platform. The article notes price changes driven by AI-era demand, lists supported configurations (8TB or 20TB HDD, up to 1TB NVMe, 2,400 MB/s read, 2,000 MB/s write), and contrasts Alkemi's approach with earlier Fusion Drive style tiering while highlighting uncertainties around data management and reliability if one drive fails.