The Drive

We received our drive in just an anti-static bag without any retail packaging. It conforms to the dimensions set forth by the 2.5" form factor. It is made out of metal to improve its durability and is only 7 mm thick, which ensures it will fit into modern notebooks.


The Seagate BarraCuda SSD uses the SATA 6 Gbps interface. It is compatible with any older SATA standard, but will, in such a case, work at reduced performance.


On the PCB, you'll find the controller, eight flash chips, and a DRAM chip.

Chip Component Analysis

The Seagate STXZA01F5578 controller is a customized version of the Phison PS3112-S12, which is an 8-channel flash controller with TLC support.


The TLC flash chips are made by Intel, using their 3D TLC technology, probably with 96 layers.


A Hynix DDR3-1866 chip provides 256 MB of fast DRAM storage for the controller to store the mapping tables.