Key facts
- Seagate said the FireCuda Forge is its first line managed by the Alkemi intelligent storage platform.
- The FireCuda Forge accepts M.2 2280 NVMe drives up to 1TB, with minimum speeds of 2,400MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write.
- Seagate claims 2,500MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write for the combined system, with USB4 and support for Windows 11 and macOS 26+.
- Seagate has not published documentation on how Alkemi handles drive failure or repair, per the report.
Seagate announced the FireCuda Forge line of storage drives on November 10, 2026, according to a report by Ars Technica. The drives pair a traditional plattered hard disk drive with a user-supplied solid-state drive, and Seagate says the line is its first to be powered and managed by the Alkemi intelligent storage platform.
The FireCuda Forge is available through Seagate's web store in an 8TB configuration at $699 and a 20TB configuration at $899. Neither price includes the required SSD. The enclosure accepts M.2 2280 NVMe drives that are PCIe Gen3 or higher, with a maximum supported NVMe capacity of 1TB and minimum speeds of 2,400MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write; Seagate recommends a unit with DRAM cache. Seagate claims 2,500MB/s read and 2,000MB/s write for the combined system, along with USB4 and support for Windows 11 and macOS 26+.
Seagate says Alkemi manages the storage pool directly from the enclosure, rather than through the operating system as Apple's Fusion Drive did. In its press release, Seagate said, "Alkemi learns and adapts over time to keep high-demand content fast and accessible on a user's SSD, while the HDD provides space for growing libraries." The product data sheet describes Alkemi as a two-tier storage system but does not say whether it uses SSD caching, automated tiering or a combination.
The announcement does not address how Alkemi distributes data between the drives or whether the failure of one drive disables the whole system. Ars Technica noted that Intel's Smart Response Technology mirrored data from the hard drive to the SSD, while Apple's Fusion Drive tiered data in 128KB blocks across the pool.
Ars Technica reported that storage prices per terabyte have risen during the AI boom. It cited data collected by Tom's Hardware showing some solid-state drives now cost two to three times their historic lows, and PCServerParts data showing a Seagate Exos 24TB drive that sold for $298.99 in the summer of 2025 was priced at $699.99 by August 2026.