The Samsung 980 Pro may be three years old, but it’s still a fairly popular PCIe 4.0 solid-state drive (SSD) that remains more affordable than its successor, the Samsung 990 Pro. However, it seems that the huge popularity of SSDs has resulted in counterfeits that infiltrate the market Tom’s equipment.
As one of best SSDs there news is not so much of a surprise, although it is definitely something consumers should be aware of when planning to buy a drive.
We’ve seen fake microSD cards plague Amazon in the past, so it’s worrying that fake SSDs are a thing too. Twitter user @harukaze5719 came across an imitation Samsung 980 pro and posted it on page a Baidu Tieba forum.
According to the user, the fake drive looked like a real one Samsung 980 Pro; it had a Pro 2TB sticker on it, and the firmware even suggested it was a 980 Pro – although that turned out to be false. Apparently, the counterfeit was so good that the drive even fooled Samsung’s Magician software, which is used to manage users’ SSDs.
[FAKE] Samsung 980 PRO SSD pic.twitter.com/OXbEqz9AvdMarch 14, 2023
The retailer sold fake Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs on Taobao’s Xianyu aftermarket for 880 yuan ($128), and it even comes in Samsung’s official packaging. However, the price of the drive is a good indicator that the SSD is a fake as the original costs $169.99 in the US market. The recipient of the fake SSD reportedly didn’t have the computer on hand when the drive arrived, so couldn’t test it for ten days after receiving it.
According to user-supplied benchmarks, the drive had read and write speeds of around 4.8Gbps and 4.5Gbps respectively, well below what the true Samsung 980 Pro offers, which offers read and write speeds of 7Gbps and 4.5Gbps, respectively. 5 Gbps depending on capacity . So obviously the performance numbers were off and a clear present that the user wasn’t working with the original.
The risk of buying counterfeit computer hardware is always present in the secondary market, no matter how prominent the online retailer may be. Sneaky sellers are always plentiful on platforms like this, prepared to take advantage of unsuspecting customers. Be sure to pay attention to too good to be true prices, and remember that everything has a price. You should always only buy from trusted sources and make sure each seller has good customer reviews before purchasing