The Seagate Lightsaber Collection Special Edition FireCuda is the SSD every Star Wars fan should get. A sleek heatsink and switchable heroic lightsaber faceplate combine with addressable RGB LEDs for an unmistakable look. This could be a showcase for your build, allowing you to control the lighting via software to match your particular aesthetic. The drive itself isn’t anything special, but it’s fast enough for any kind of use, and Seagate’s three-year worry-free data recovery service kicks in, making it a contender for our Best SSD list.
Underneath the Seagate Lightsaber FireCuda (referred to as FireCuda from now on) is basically Seagate’s old FireCuda 530. This drive is known for its excellent performance in sustained workloads and is a high-end PCIe 4.0 SSD with a high endurance (TBW) rating. Seagate’s warranty includes his one attempt at data recovery, and SeaTools software support for the drive. So even if it’s not the fastest, this drive is a safe choice. The challenge is to get it.
Lightsaber FireCuda is meant to show off, i.e. for desktop use. It comes with 3 interchangeable faceplates and a long ARGB connector cable. The latter can be a pain to work with, depending on your cabling preferences. The heatsink is functionally designed by EKWB and well matched with higher sustained performance. Otherwise, this is his standard FireCuda 530, one of his more consistent SSDs based on Phison’s E18 SSD controller.
specification
| product | 1TB | 2TB |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $159.99 | $239.99 |
| form factor | M.2 2280 | M.2 2280 |
| interface/protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 | PCIe 4.0 x4 |
| controller | Phison E18 | Phison E18 |
| drum | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| flash memory | 176-layer micron TLC | 176-layer micron TLC |
| sequential read | 7,300MBps | 7,300MBps |
| sequential light | 6,000MBps | 6,900MBps |
| random read | 800K | 1,000K |
| random write | 1,000K | 1,000K |
| safety | N/A | N/A |
| Endurance (TBW) | 1,275TBW | 2,550TBW |
| size | 80.15mm x 25.0mm x 19.0mm (length x width x height) | 80.15mm x 25.0mm x 19.0mm (length x width x height) |
| part number | ZP1000GM30053 | ZP2000GM3A033 |
| guarantee | 5 years | 5 years |
The Seagate Lightsaber FireCuda is available in 1TB and 2TB, currently priced at around $159.99 and $239.99 respectively. These drives can be hard to find and the prices are pretty steep for what you get, but if you’re looking for a certain aesthetic, it’s not too bad. This drive is the fastest at 2TB, reaching 7,300 MBps / 6,900 MBps for sequential reads and writes and 1M / 1M IOPS for random reads and writes.
Seagate warrants this drive for 5 years and guarantees 1,275 TB writes per TB of capacity, which is pretty expensive. Even the standard 600 TB per 1 TB is a huge amount of writes, so using the TBW rating when choosing a drive is not recommended. Seagate supports her SSD with his 3-year Rescue Data Recovery service. That’s great, but a hard drive is probably more convenient.
Software and accessories
Lightsaber FireCuda comes with a standard manual and packaged content including Rescue Data Recovery service notices. You can also download his SeaTools for Windows, Linux in bootable format from Seagate’s site. This makes me happy. The SeaTools application provides standard monitoring and tools for Seagate HDDs and SSDs.
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The Seagate Lightsaber SSD comes with 3 faceplates, including Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader faceplates, all in a comfortable, officially licensed box. It also comes with a 40cm (almost 16 inch) LED RGB connector cable. This cable allows you to control Addressable RGB (ARGB) lighting with a variety of RGB software applications.
The drive is covered with an effective heatsink made by EKWB. EKWB is Seagate FireCuda 530 The design is different, but this forms the basis of this drive.
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The bottom of the LED bar is thick, but otherwise not surprising. The drive continues to use the Phison E18 SSD controller, 176-layer Micron TLC (B47R), and DDR4 memory. This drive has 2 DRAM and 8 NAND packages on both sides. With a standard 2 GB of DRAM and 2 TB with plenty of flash for interleaving, the drive reaches maximum performance.
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