Bogus Samsung 980 & 990 Pro SSDs are circulating online, performing worse than a USB drive

Fake hardware components have been making the rounds at major retailers, and now fake Samsung 980 & 990 Pro SSDs are popping up online, courtesy of overclocking expert Roman Hartung”der8auer“.

Many fake Samsung 980 & 990 Pro retail SSDs on AliExpress have degraded performance and with much lower capacity

There were several SSDs tested by Roman, but the thickest one was the “Samsung 980 EVO 4 TB” listed on AliExpress. First, we should let our readers know that the “980 EVO” model does not exist which is a big red flag at first. On top of that, the SSD retailed for around €40, which is pretty low, especially considering it’s a 4TB variant. One of Roman’s subscribers made light of the SSD, so he decided to delve into the depths of the “fake” Samsung SSD.

Going into the depths of the fake “980 EVO”, the box revealed a somewhat unprofessional font and design, making it obvious that the product is not original. Apparently, the manufacturers didn’t think “behind” the copying process, and the declared read and write speeds for the supposed NVMe weren’t even close to a conventional SATA SSD. Ironically, T & C behind the box quoted Samsung Warranty Service and there were logos for previous generation SSDs.

Unboxing the SSD revealed that the company did its best to exclude the “Samsung” brand. This may have been done to avoid potential lawsuits or defamation cases from the company. When the sticker was removed, other “fraudulent” attempts at anonymity emerged, as on the built-in console, the seller’s tags were removed through a laser. The flash chips refer to a Micron product, but the details weren’t clear.

Things got a little exciting when the SSD was tested by Crystal Disk Mark. The program showed 4TB of storage but that’s the case most of the time for SSDs. The critical point came in H2testw (an application that fills data into a storage device to check maximum capacity). Initial testing showed that write speeds dropped significantly when the SSD hit the 100GB mark, showing that the 4TB brand was indeed a gimmick.

Crystal Disk Mark’s speed tests show that the solid-state drive has read and write speeds of 36.25MB/s and 0.84MB/s, respectively. The results were a complete disaster and the SSD performed much worse than a traditional USB drive.

Apart from the fake “Samsung 980 EVO 4TB”, Roman also tested a variety of other products that were very fake as expected such as Samsung 980 Pro and Samsung 990 Pro. This certainly raises concerns about the authenticity of an AliExpress size retailer. Many unaware consumers often fall into such traps and end up facing degraded performance after some time. We advise our readers not to fall for such advertisements as they are usually either a fake or damaged copy of the original product.