Overview
- The FireCuda Forge, which Seagate announced on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, ships as an external enclosure with either an 8TB or 20TB user‑replaceable hard drive.
- Alkemi is Seagate’s on‑device machine‑learning tiering system that watches file use and moves 'hot' files to the NVMe SSD while showing both drives as one volume to the OS.
- Seagate rates peak throughput at up to 2,500 MB/s read and 2,000 MB/s write and requires a 1TB M.2 2280 NVMe SSD that meets minimum speeds of about 2,400/2,000 MB/s with DRAM cache recommended.
- The Forge is available from Seagate and some retailers with list prices of $699 for 8TB and $899 for 20TB but the unit does not include the SSD so prevailing NVMe shortages will raise the total purchase cost.
- Independent reviews and real‑world tests are pending and will be the key proof of whether Alkemi can move files without stutter during tasks like game patches, video export, or live capture; the Forge repackages enterprise tiering for gamers and creators who need large, lower‑cost capacity.