Stefan Mileschin

Seagate is refreshing their consumer SSD lineup with 96-layer 3D NAND, and introducing a new flagship model: the FireCuda 520, Seagate's first PCIe 4.0 SSD. As with every other consumer PCIe 4.0 SSD so far, the Seagate FireCuda 520 uses the Phison E16 controller. The FireCuda 520 arrives several months after the first Phison E16-based SSDs, and Seagate has used the time to refine the product a bit. They haven't made any firmware tweaks that affect performance, but the FireCuda 520 does use a Seagate-specific firmware variant that includes some extra security measures to protect against firmware hacks, and it's been through some extra QA.

In terms of hardware, the FireCuda 520 is a pretty standard Phison E16 reference design using Toshiba/Kioxia BiCS4 96-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory. The drive uses a two-sided black PCB with no heatspreader or heatsink included, since most new motherboards are providing their own M.2 cooling solution. Seagate rates the FireCuda for up to a generous one drive write per day for the five-year warranty period. MSRPs for the FireCuda 520 match its status as a flagship drive, and are almost twice the street prices for the cheapest PCIe 3.0-based NVMe SSDs.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15093...20-pcie-40-ssd