Fake Samsung SSDs Found at Etailer, Then Benchmarked

Fake SSDs from Ali Express
(Image credit: der8auer)

The adage about some things being too good to be true never gets old, as demonstrated by TechTuber Roman 'der8auer' Hartung in his latest video. The extreme overclocking expert was alerted by a friendly subscriber about some very attractively priced Samsung branded 4TB SSDs on the AliExpress marketplace. To cut a long story short, as you can see from the video title below, these drives were fake.

Der8auer's skepticism with regard to these AliExpress advertized SSDs being genuine was not just aroused by the incredible pricing — this particular 'Samsung' 4TB SSD was €40 (about $44). Another warning about whether this was a genuine product came from the model name/number. The 'Samsung 980 EVO' doesn't even exist in Samsung's product catalogs, never mind a 4TB version.

Pondering over the packaging, many other blunders or inconsistencies from the knock-off makers were apparent. On the front of the 'Samsung 980 EVO' we see a single-keyed M.2 device, which should be an NVMe device, however, the advertised transfer speeds would have tallied with an M.2 SATA device. Indeed, unpackaging the drive showed it was M.2 SATA. On the rear of the packaging was a mishmash of copied slogans, terms, and warranty promises.

(Image credit: der8auer)

After unboxing, der8auer continued his visual inspection, raising various peculiar flags for a 'Samsung' drive. Peeling the sticker showed that whoever put together this M.2 device erased any identifying markings off the SSD controller chip. Despite being able to read some code numbers on the flash NAND chips, of which there were just two (on this single-sided SSD), der8auer couldn't find any technical information about them.

Moving onto testing, der8auer decided to put his new 'Samsung 980 EVO 4TB' drive through some system info and benchmarking tools. Upon connecting the M.2 device, Windows showed it as a 3.72 TB free volume. CrystalDisk Info agreed with this initial assessment, and the info fields were fully populated.

(Image credit: der8auer)

Der8auer's attempt to verify the capacity of the new SSD hit a practical roadblock when it became apparent that completing this process would take at least 24 hours. Yes, it started to go very slowly after an initial burst of speed. Switching to the same tool's benchmarking tab showed why any capacity verification task would be "painful and slow," with sequential read and write speeds of 36.25 MB/s and 0.84 MB/s, respectively. It is hard to find such slow flash storage nowadays, so this is kind of a negative achievement.

Other Storage Products Which You Should Definitely Avoid

As a footnote, der8auer noticed some other irresistible SSDs while browsing for the headlining 'Samsung 980 EVO 4TB'. He couldn't stop himself from adding the following to his basket:

  • An external 'Seagate' SSD with an advertized 64TB capacity,
  • A similar 'Seagate' external SSD with an incredible 128TB claimed capacity,
  • And another M.2 drive, this time claimed to be a 'Samsung 980 PRO 4TB' (a Samsung SKU which isn't shipping yet).

(Image credit: der8auer)

The above bullet-pointed external drives were found to contain a small PCB with 64GB microSD cards glued into a socket. However, the purported Samsung 980 PRO 4TB (€50) offered an almost acceptable performance of 2,473 MB/s reads and 1,057 MB/s writes until the lack of cache became apparent. Again, the capacity (4TB in this case) was faked. Moreover, the so-called 980 PRO 4TB was probably "best case 1TB" in capacity, said der8auer.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • USAFRet
    "this particular 'Samsung' 4TB SSD was €40 (about $44)"

    As always, if it looks to good to be true....
    Reply
  • purpleduggy
    USAFRet said:
    "this particular 'Samsung' 4TB SSD was €40 (about $44)"

    As always, if it looks to good to be true....
    16TB nvme for $20 is a great deal :>
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Fake products on sketchy Chinese websites? Who would have thought...
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    just to play devil's advocate...

    nowhere does it say samsung on the box. as noted a 980 evo does not even exist. so it's not exactly a "fake samsung" drive. but rather a cheap POS made to lok similar hoping to catch someone not playing close enough attention.

    lots and lots of red flags which should have been obvious to most anyone but like any product i've seen for sale on a street corner of a major city, it is clearly only made to look like a popular product in packaging.

    if it said Samsung and such, then there's a reason to get upset about it. but as noted above, a cheap POS on a site that only sells cheap knockoff POS stuff. not much of a shocker really.
    Reply
  • Garden-Gnome
    Alvar Miles Udell said:
    Fake products on sketchy Chinese websites? Who would have thought...
    You can find similar fakes on Amazon too.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Math Geek said:
    just to play devil's advocate...

    nowhere does it say samsung on the box. as noted a 980 evo does not even exist. so it's not exactly a "fake samsung" drive. but rather a cheap POS made to lok similar hoping to catch someone not playing close enough attention.

    lots and lots of red flags which should have been obvious to most anyone but like any product i've seen for sale on a street corner of a major city, it is clearly only made to look like a popular product in packaging.

    if it said Samsung and such, then there's a reason to get upset about it. but as noted above, a cheap POS on a site that only sells cheap knockoff POS stuff. not much of a shocker really.
    Yes, the label on the drive does not state "Samsung". But it also depends what it said on the listing.

    And we've had multiple people here with a "$20 16TB flash drive", KNOWING that it is a simple problem and wondering how to unlock that missing drive space.

    And a quick google search shows many listing for a "Samsung 980 EVO", incl from Dell.
    https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/samsung-980-evo-mz-v8v500b-solid-state-drive-encrypted-500-gb-internal-m2-2280-pci-express-30-x4-nvme-256-bit-aes-tcg-opal-encryption-20/apd/ab571991/storage-drives-media
    Reply
  • Camilo Pizano Velasquez
    In the image I can see a NGFF....Not Going to Function , F*~kers
    Reply
  • nogames
    Math Geek said:
    just to play devil's advocate...

    nowhere does it say samsung on the box. as noted a 980 evo does not even exist. so it's not exactly a "fake samsung" drive. but rather a cheap POS made to lok similar hoping to catch someone not playing close enough attention.

    Actually, if you see his video and not just comment on the article, the back clearly says for warranty go to samsung.com

    4q8SiZcllFA:844View: https://youtu.be/4q8SiZcllFA?t=844
    Reply
  • dimar
    just go to amazon and search for 2TB microsd, even 1TB microsd, you'll see the meaning of fake.
    Reply
  • PEnns
    dimar said:
    just go to amazon and search for 2TB microsd, even 1TB microsd, you'll see the meaning of fake.

    Amazon is fast becoming the American version of AliExpress.
    Reply