Fake SSDs? Counterfiet Samsung SSDs spotted at online retailer

Scammers are now selling fake Samsung SSDs online, and they perform worse than you’d think

Fake Samsung SSDs are available to purchase online, with seller hoping to scam buyers with sub-par products and non-existent SKUs. When he became aware of these fake SSDs, Roman “der8auer” Hartung, a well known German overclocker, purchased a few of these fake SSDs to benchmark them and tell his viewers how to avoid these fake AliExpress SSDs. 

Within his video, der8auer showcases a 4TB Samsung 980 EVO SSD and a 4TB Samsung 990 PRO. For starters, Samsung has never released 980 EVO SSDs, and Samsung has not released a 4TB version of their 990 PRO SSD. In Windows, both of these fake SSDs showcased 3.72 TB capacities, but the capacities of both of these SSDs were falsified. 

The CrystalDiskMark benchmark below showcases the performance offered by der8auer’s fake 980 EVO SSD, a drive that is painfully slow with maximum read speeds of 36.25 MB/s. der8auer was not able to uncover the true drive capacity of this SSD, as its low write speeds would have made such tests take days to complete. 

The false 990 PRO offered more reasonable performance levels, with 2,473 MB/s reads and 1,057 MB/s writes. That said, these speeds are a far cry from what a real 990 PRO can achieve, and once this SSD’s cache fills, its data rates slow to a crawl. dar8auer believes that this SSD is at best a 1TB drive.

PC builders should be aware that fake SSDs and storage products are available online, and the easiest way to spot a fake product is if its price is too good to be true. €40 for a 4TB SSD is a crazy low price; It’s too good to be true, and consumers should avoid these counterfeit products. Another way to spot fakes is if sellers advertise SSDs or other products with storage capacities that do not exist. For example, Samsung has not release their 4TB 990 PRO SSD yet, and 128TB portable/external SSDs do not exist.

Fake storage products are not new to the PC market, and we hope that AliExpress takes firm action against the sellers of these counterfeit products. You can watch der8auer’s full video on these fake SSDs below. 

You can join the discussion on AliExpress’ fake Samsung SSDs on the OC3D Forums.