Amazon has listed Seagate's compact FireCuda 520N solid-state drives. The drives primarily target handheld gaming devices like the Asus ROG Ally and Valve Steam Deck, but are also useful for svelte PCs like Microsoft's Surface laptops. The new SSDs come in an M.2-2230 form-factor and can extend storage capacity and performance for portable consoles. As a bonus, the drives include Seagate's Rescue Services for extra piece of mind.
Currently, Amazon lists both Seagate FireCuda 520N 1 TB and FireCuda 520N 2 TB models. Despite their compact M.2-2230 stature, the drives do not compromise on performance, boasting impressive sequential read speeds reaching 5,000 MB/s for the 2 TB SKU, and 4,750 MB/s for the 1 TB SKU, which is in line with the performance offered by Seagate's original FireCuda 520, an M.2-2280 form-factor device.
While Seagate remains tight-lipped about the specific NVMe 1.4 controller or 3D NAND devices used by its FireCuda 520N lineup, Seagate typically works with Phison, so it is likely that the drives use one of Phison's platforms that is optimized for portable gaming consoles that have limitations when it comes to heat and power.
Storage-wise, Seagate's FireCuda 520N does not disappoint with 1 TB and 2 TB capacities available from day one. Both offer significant storage enhancements for devices like the Asus ROG Ally and Valve Steam Deck, which are sold in SKUs with 512GB or less built-in storage.
For now, Amazon has not disclosed the pricing of Seagate's FireCuda 520N drives, but we would expect them to carry price tags that are comparable to those of Western Digital's WD_Black SN770M M.2-2230 SSDs released last week ($109.99 for the 1 TB model, and $219.99 for the 2 TB SKU).
While the M.2-2230 form-factor has been around for years, almost no companies offered retail M.2-2230 drives until this year, and the majority of SSDs sold in this format were meant initially for OEMs. Everything changed with Valve's launch of Steam Deck last year and Asustek's launch of ROG Ally this year. First, Sabrent came to market with higher-capacity offerings targeting Steam Deck, and now both Seagate and Western Digital have begun to offer high-capacity drives for portable consoles.
