What Is The Difference Between BarraCuda And Firecuda SSHD and Which Is Better?

The computer storage market is probably one of the most interesting when it comes to system components. With the HDD, SSD, and SSHD all available, one has various varieties to go with. Nonetheless, with every choice made, there are also sacrifices to be made because just like everything else, no single drive has it all. While all have their strengths, they also have their downside hence it is not uncommon to find gamers placing the various drives up against one another.

Among the most interesting storage selections are the BarraCuda and Firecuda SSHD. The drives have raised a lot of questions of late because of the abundant space they have. But beyond that, how about their speed, reliability, and other factors? What is the difference between BarraCuda and Firecuda SSHD and which should one go with?

What Is The Difference Between BarraCuda And Firecuda SSHD?

Barracuda Drive

These are among the most popular hard drives available. They come with the promise of speed, versatility, and reliability. The drives are available in 2.5-inch as well as 3.5-inch form factors.

What the drive makes use of is the memory solution known as the multi-tier caching (MTC) technology which features different memory technologies that give you an edge in performance such as the NAND Flash memory, DRAM cache, Media cache, and then the main storage.

What Seagate has achieved with the Barracuda drive is something that is very much reliable compared to other hard drives because it has fewer parts in it. With fewer parts, there are fewer points of failure when compared to other drives that are designed with a ton of read-heads and platters.

Generally, the performance of your drive is enhanced by a lot of things including the data storage capacity available. Because the Barracuda comes with very high capacity, it is much faster. The DRAM that the drive comes with also helps in accessing your data much faster. And then there is also the flash memory that it is kitted with for the same purpose of speed and accessing data most likely to use.

There is also the BarraCuda pro which although are slightly more expensive, come with a warranty of 5 years and they have higher capacity.

FireCuda SSHD

On the surface, the Difference between BarraCuda and Firecuda SSHD may cut deep, but with a deep look, it is pretty much little. That is what you get with the hybrid drives even though they are still making a pretty strong entry into the storage market.

The solid state hybrid drive is neither an HDD nor an SSD; it is a combination of the two with the aim of giving you the speed of an SSD and the space of the HDD all on the same plate. With that said, the FireCuda SSHD is Seagate’s hybrid drive that attempts to like all other hybrid drives, give you speed and capacity at a cheaper price.

For a 2TB drive, you get 8GB NAND flash memory which although is great, doesn’t seem overwhelming. Nonetheless, it gives an edge in the boot time most especially. When you start with the drive, you may not see an instant edge in performance because the drive will first understand your behavior and then cache the programs that you access the most for faster loading.

Finally, the FireCuda also comes with a warranty of five years, which marks a huge step above the 2 to 3-year warranty that you get with other drives.

Which Is Better?

Difference Between BarraCuda And Firecuda SSHD
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Without a world-changing difference between BarraCuda and Firecuda SSHD, the choice of which to get can be very confusing. Should one go for the BarraCuda which gives more capacity or the FireCuda SSHD which also promises speed although slightly more expensive?

If you are looking to get better performance, the simple and obvious choice will be to go with the hybrid drive over a hard drive. FireCuda SSHD comes with an edge in performance over the BarraCuda drive because as mentioned, it has the NAND Flash drive which is what is used by SSD for the purpose of speed.

However, the speed of the FireCuda over BarraCuda is very minimal because of the technology that is used in the design of the drive. For many, the minimal performance is not enough for one to spend the extra dollars in getting the FireCuda.

The argument about SSHD will sustain for a long time, but it will still drag its feet. One of the main issues that will stand against it is that although in theory, it is a combination of SSD and HHD, in practice, it is more HHD than SSD. Flash storage side of the drive is very little compared to the HDD.

More so, you do not get to decide what data should be stored on your Flash storage and what should be left on the HDD. It is all decided by the system based on what you always access on your computer.

Depending on what you really want, FireCuda SSHD may seem more appealing, but with the MTC technology that Barracuda features, the main advantages of SSHD are further dwarfed, in both speed and durability. Hence while it is easy for us to recommend going with either BarraCuda or even an SSD, the choice will always come down to one’s preference and what it is needed for.

See Also: SSD vs HDD For Gaming – Which One Is Better [Simple Explanation] 

Conclusion

At the end of the day, what one will always come back to is the question of performance and reliability. Both these Seagate drives have something to offer in the departments, but neither is able to make any strong statement over the other. As a result of this, the better drive that one should go with is the Solid State Drive, which is more priced than both the two drives reviewed. SSD offers both capacity and real-world performance that is unmatched by both Barracuda and FireCuda, although it is more expensive than the two drives.

But then, if the great leap in performance is not what you are looking for but rather capacity and more than decent reliability, the BarraCuda drive is what we will recommend mainly because it is slightly cheaper than the other drive which does not offer any significant performance in return over this drive.

Tim Flaherty
Tim Flaherty
Tim is our talented senior tech writer and editor, the one who plays music on replay, drinks more coffee than beer, plays video games, and reads poetry. In between, Tim reviews products, write about computers, games, hardware, software, guides, reviews and talk tech and arts. If there is a WWIII, he thinks it could be caused by bad writing.

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