SSDs are cheaper than ever and make a worthwhile investment for a fast and affordable upgrade for PC and PS5. But a used SSD can cause a lot of trouble, as one user shows.
A user purchased a used SSD for his system. He chose the Samsung 980 Pro (2 TB), one of the most popular SSDs on the market, which you can now find between 150 and 170 euros in stores. We also consider the Samsung 980 Pro one of the best SSDs that you can buy for your PS5.
With around 120 euros, the user saved about 30 euros off the normal price. But the joy was short-lived. Unfortunately, the SSD he received was a really good counterfeit that many of you might not have recognized at first glance. This was reported by the news magazine Techradar.com.
Many gamers may not be able to recognize the counterfeit SSD
Why was the counterfeit so convincing? At first glance, the SSD exhibited all the characteristics that would indicate a genuine Samsung SSD:
- The official “Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB” sticker looked genuine.
- The firmware booted normally and even managed to deceive Samsung’s official Magician software. With this free software, you can check your Samsung SSD’s health or performance on your PC.
- The counterfeit SSDs are even delivered in an official Samsung package.
How can you recognize the counterfeit? Under the stickers, experienced users could quickly see that it was a counterfeit. The counterfeit uses a completely different storage controller than the original and has much slower flash memory installed. The flash memory is likely to have a significantly shorter lifespan as well, which is usually indicated in TBW (Total Bytes Written).
And this is also reflected in the tests conducted by the user (via tieba.baidu.com):
- The counterfeit SSD achieves sequential read and write speeds of about 4.8 GB/s and 4.5 GB/s in CrystalDiskMark and up to 4.2 GB/s and 3.9 GB/s in a second benchmark.
- In comparison: the official Samsung 980 Pro has official sequential read and write speeds of up to 7 GB/s and 5 GB/s, respectively.
Most users probably won’t even notice that they have fallen for a convincingly genuine counterfeit. The counterfeit is made so cleverly that you really need to know the details to distinguish it from the original.
Once installed, few people are likely to think about removing the SSD from their computer or PS5 – especially not if they have already installed several games on the new storage.
If you’ve fallen for a counterfeit, you don’t have to fear any legal consequences – unless you resell the product. This could lead to hefty fines and prison sentences. So you shouldn’t sell your counterfeit SSD to the next gamer.
