This blog was updated in November 2022.
- Both Beskar Ingot drives feature a special edition Star Wars design, with an Imperial stamp and a wavy Damascus pattern.
- FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot is a super-fast NVMe drive, with read speeds exceeding 7,000MB/s.
- FireCuda 530 is faster than the PlayStation 5’s internal drive for even faster loading times.
- FireCuda 530 is one of the fastest PCIe Gen4 SSDs available at Ebuyer.
- FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot is a SATA SSD, ideal if your motherboard doesn’t support PCIe Gen4
- FireCuda 120 maxes out the SATA interface, rated at read speeds of 560MB/s
Star Wars fans, get a galactic edge in performance with the special edition line-up of Beskar Ingot storage drives from Seagate, inspired by The Mandalorian. Built for true collectors who need a galaxy’s worth of storage. We’ve got our hands on two of these drives: the Seagate FireCuda 530 and 120. Let’s run through their features to find out which one you should pick up.
FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot – PCIe Gen4 NVMe SSD
Out of the two drives, the Seagate FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot is by far the fastest. It’s an PCIe Gen4, NVMe-powered solid-state drive (SSD) that drops into a motherboard’s M.2 slot – no extra cables required. This is opposed to a SATA-powered SSD (like the Seagate FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot that we’ll check out later) that’s hooked up with data and power cables.
FireCuda 530 Read-Write Speeds
Beneath the Star Wars-inspired heatsink, you’ll find Seagate’s highly rated FireCuda 530. In fact, we’ve already covered it over on the Ebuyer YouTube channels and in a blog. So, for a dedicated, in-depth review of the FireCuda 530 (including PlayStation 5 installation and testing), make sure to check out 7,300MB/s speeds! – Seagate FireCuda 530 solid-state drive…
As a quick recap, the FireCuda 530’s PCIe Gen4 interface unlocks ludicrously-fast read and write speeds. On the 1TB model, the drive reached a 7,300MB/s read and a 6,000MB/s write. This exceeds the PlayStation 5’s built in storage by a considerable margin for even snappier loading times, and is twelve times faster than even the fastest SATA SSDs. The 500GB model is plenty fast too, running at an ever so slightly slower 7,000 MB/s read and a 3,000MB/s write.
It’s completely normal for the larger model of an SSD to be faster too as they’ve got more data channels to work with. Moreover, the read speed is what’s important for gaming. When gaming, you’re streaming (or ‘reading’) assets off the drive, not so much creating new ones and ‘writing’ them to it.
Compare your drive against the FireCuda 530
These read and write speeds are at least what Seagate claim. To check their validity, we’ve ran our own in-house testing on the FireCuda 530 Beskar Ignot using CrystalDiskMark – scores above. Check out WD_Black SN850 Unboxing & Testing… to learn more about CrystalDiskMark and why it’s our go-to software for benchmarking SSDs.
Download it for yourself and see how your storage drives compares against the FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot. Seeing as it’s one of if not the fastest PCIe Gen4 SSDs available at Ebuyer, we’re confident in saying that this drive’s got you beat!
Unboxing the FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot
That’s enough tech talk for now. Let’s turn our focus to what make these special edition drives stand out: the Star Wars design. And it starts with the unboxing.
The FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot comes in custom packaging you won’t find with other models of the FireCuda 530. Inside is a postcard of The Mandalorian with Baby Yoda hanging out at his side (a nice touch) and the drive itself.
FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot Custom Heatsink
Holding the drive, it’s clear that Seagate have gone through the effort to make this a proper collector’s item. They haven’t just slapped a sticker over a normal FireCuda 530 drive and called it a day. Seagate’s machined a new heatsink design just for this line-up. You’ll feel the grooves in it as you run your finger over the Imperial stamp and wavy Damascus pattern.
This all-metal heatsink isn’t purely for show either. It was made in close partnership with EWKB, a leading brand of PC cooling solutions. You might’ve heard of them for their custom water-cooling gear: CPU blocks, GPU blocks, radiators, and more.
When it comes to PC cooling, you’re probably most concerned about the CPU and GPU temperatures. But now you’ve got to factor the SDD into the equation. Under load, PCIe Gen4 SSDs can get surprisingly toasty as they’re so fast.
This hasn’t been a problem for PCIe Gen3 drives, but with PCIe Gen4, it’s something to keep an eye on. Some form of cooling is often necessary for the fastest drives, whether that’s a good source of fresh air, a heatsink, or both. Otherwise, they’ll overheat and throttle.
Therefore, it’s strongly advised by Sony themselves to pick up a drive with a heatsink if you’re looking to drop it in the enclosed drive bay of a PlayStation 5.
EKWB’s heatsink helps keep temperatures low and performance high, making the FireCuda 530 an ideal candidate for a PlayStation 5 or high-performance gaming PC. You can buy some PCIe Gen4 drives without a heatsink to save a bit of cash, but they won’t be as fast.
FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot – SATA SSD
While PCIe Gen4 SSDs are fantastic, they’re sometimes not suitable for every PC build. What if you’ve ran out of M.2 slots on your motherboard, or your processor-motherboard combo doesn’t support PCIe Gen4 technology, or the drives are too expensive? Seagate doesn’t want you to miss out on The Mandalorian love, so that’s where the FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot comes in.
SATA Vs. NVMe
Here’s a 3.5″ HDD compared to the 2.5″ Seagate FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot and M.2 form-factor FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot.
It’s a SATA-powered SSD and comes in a 2.5” form-factor. Check out the comparison image between the FireCuda 120 and 540 above. The FireCuda 530’s design is no longer than a stick of gum and drops into a motherboard’s M.2 slot.
On the other hand, the FireCuda 120 is larger and slides into a computer case’s drive bay. We’ve also included a 3.5” for good measure to show how slim either drive is.
It’s great to see that despite the different form-factor, the FireCuda 530’s design carries over just as well to the FireCuda 120 with a solid, all-metal enclosure. Nothing’s stopping you from picking up both drives for a full-on The Mandalorian rig.
FireCuda 120 Read-Write Speeds
As it’s only connected over a SATA interface and not PCIe Gen4, the FireCuda 120 beskar Ingot is nowhere near as fast as the FireCuda 530. In terms of performance, PCIe Gen4 SSDs are in a completely different ballpark. If you’re looking for the fastest boot times and loading times, that’s the Beskar Ingot drive to get.
That’s not to say the FireCuda is slow, or it’s not pushing the SATA interface. SATA maxes out at 600MB/s, and the FireCuda 120 pushes right up against this limit. It’s rated at a 560MB/s read and a 540MB/s write, as validated by our own in-house testing – scores below.
Advantages of SATA
SATA is a matured technology, so while it may not be as fast as PCIe, it makes up for it in capacity and cost. Browse Ebuyer’s range of Beskar Ingor drives and you’ll see the 1TB SATA drive is considerably cheaper than the 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe drive.
The FireCuda 530 is ideal for a high-end gaming PC, while the FireCuda’s cheaper cost-per-gigabyte and respectable read-write speeds makes it more suitable as storage for your larger files. What’s more, your motherboard is likely to support way more SATA slots than M.2 slots. You could run several SATA drives – HDDs and SSDs – in your gaming PC, without using up your motherboard’s PCIe lanes.
And while you might not be able to run PlayStation 5 games from a SATA SSD (too slow compared to console’s internal drive), you can back-compat PlayStation 4 games from it. Pick up a FireCuda 120 Beskar Ingot drive and a SATA-to-USB adapter for your PS4 games to free up space on your PS5’s internal drive.
What else is included?
In the box for these Beskar Ingot drives, you’ll find a collection of stickers from Seagate, EKWB and Star Wars to personalise your set-up with.
Also, it’s worth mentioning Seagate’s fantastic support services that are included with every Beskar Ingot drive. With a five-year, industry-leading warranty and three years’ worth of data recovery services, if your drive happens to fail, you’re in safe hands.
Seagate FireCuda Beskar Ingot Drives at Ebuyer
Seagate Beskar Ingot drives, as with all Seagate drives, are extremely reliable. For long-lasting endurance that’ll see you through an entire generation’s worth of gaming, the 1TB model of the FireCuda 530 Beskar Ingot is rated for 1,275 terabytes written (TBW).
To learn more about these special edition drives pick one up for yourself, check them out over at Ebuyer.
