# Seagate revives hybrid storage with FireCuda Forge drive

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/seagates-new-hybrid-drive-raises-some-old-questions/
- Published: 2026-11-10T23:30:56+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-11T00:33:07+00:00
- Original publisher: Ars Technica
- Original article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/11/seagate-resurrects-the-ssd-hdd-hybrid-drive/
- Topics: Software

## Key points

- Seagate has revived the hybrid drive with its FireCuda Forge.
- Models cost $699 for 8TB or $899 for 20TB, excluding the SSD.
- Alkemi’s data management and drive failure handling remain unclear.

## Summary

Seagate has launched the FireCuda Forge, a hybrid storage drive pairing a high-capacity hard disk with a user-supplied SSD. The product revisits an approach that largely faded as SSDs became cheaper, at a time when storage prices have risen sharply; Seagate says its Alkemi platform manages the two drives as one pool.

The Forge is sold in 8TB and 20TB versions for $699 and $899 respectively, without the required SSD. It supports an M.2 2280 NVMe drive of up to 1TB, with minimum read and write speeds of 2,400MB/s and 2,000MB/s; Seagate claims combined speeds of up to 2,500MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write. The company says Alkemi learns which content needs faster access, but has not explained whether it uses caching, automated data tiering or both, leaving questions about how it works and what happens if either drive fails.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.