News Buyer beware: Fake Samsung 1080 Pro 4TB SSD promising unbelievable 15.8 GB/s speeds for $43 is too good to be true

[Admin]

Korean news outlet Quasar Zone bought and tested an obscure Samsung-looking 1080 Pro SSD from China.

Buyer beware: Fake Samsung 1080 Pro 4TB SSD promising unbelievable 15.8 GB/s speeds for $43 is too good to be true : Read more

 

[Order 66]

Almost sounds like it could be an Nvidia graphics card, but then again, the entire samsung 900 lineup of SSDs does as well. @Colif, you probably aren't surprised, but this is the first I've heard of fake internal SSDs. I am a bit confused at the 100GB single file copy test, even at 1GB/s it should be only 100 seconds, and not over 1000, correct?

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Almost sounds like it could be an Nvidia graphics card, but then again, the entire samsung 900 lineup of SSDs does as well. @Colif, you probably aren't surprised, but this is the first I've heard of fake internal SSDs. I am a bit confused at the 100GB single file copy test, even at 1GB/s it should be only 100 seconds, and not over 1000, correct?

My guess is that the drive only has 128GB or 256GB of actual capacity — maybe 512GB (because there's only a single NAND chip) — certainly nowhere near 4TB. So even if it can put up some seemingly decent numbers in synthetic tests, real-world tasks like copying files are going to choke. Copying will hit both reads and writes, and at that point the controller may simply choke. The bogus firmware (assuming it reports 4TB?) would also run into issues. Real-world file transfer speeds are often half as fast, or even one fourth as fast, as what ATTO shows.

 

[USAFRet]

Almost sounds like it could be an Nvidia graphics card, but then again, the entire samsung 900 lineup of SSDs does as well. @Colif, you probably aren't surprised, but this is the first I've heard of fake internal SSDs. I am a bit confused at the 100GB single file copy test, even at 1GB/s it should be only 100 seconds, and not over 1000, correct?

The speed is irrelevant.
There is not 4TB of drive space.

But the likely 3rd rate microSD cards inside are typically slooooow.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

The speed is irrelevant.
There is not 4TB of drive space.

But the likely 3rd rate microSD cards inside are typically slooooow.

As noted in the text, there's a 96-layer Intel TLC NAND chip on these, with a Realtek controller. So it's not using microSD, but probably might as well be doing that.

 

[Order 66]

As noted in the text, there's a 96-layer Intel TLC NAND chip on these, with a Realtek controller. So it's not using microSD, but probably might as well be doing that.

Can you elaborate, on the “might as well be doing that” part? I mean it is TLC NAND, so it should be fine, right?

 

[USAFRet]

Can you elaborate, on the “might as well be doing that” part? I mean it is TLC NAND, so it should be fine, right?

NAND rejects from other companies, that just barely work.

Not good enough to end up in a Samsung/Crucial/WD, and sold for pennies on the dollar.

 

[Order 66]

NAND rejects from other companies, that just barely work.

Not good enough to end up in a Samsung/Crucial/WD, and sold for pennies on the dollar.

By barely work, do you mean slow read/write speeds, lower capacity, or both?

 

[USAFRet]

By barely work, do you mean slow read/write speeds, lower capacity, or both?

Could be both.

In any case, you're not getting a real 4TB for $43.

 

[Order 66]

Could be both.

In any case, you're not getting a real 4TB for $43.

I guess I just don’t understand how faulty NAND could result in lower capacity. I understand how you could modify firmware to make something lower capacity appear higher capacity, but that’s the extent of my understanding of these fake SSDs.

 

[USAFRet]

I guess I just don’t understand how faulty NAND could result in lower capacity. I understand how you could modify firmware to make something lower capacity appear higher capacity, but that’s the extent of my understanding of these fake SSDs.

Yield per area.

If a given area is supposed to hold 512GB, but it does not....that is rejected by the originator.

And sold to an aggregator, who sells it to a second/third rate company...something like KingSpec.

If it does not meet their low standards, it is then sold to someone farther down the chain, and ends up in junk like this.

 

[Order 66]

Yield per area.

If a given area is supposed to hold 512GB, but it does not....that is rejected by the originator.

And sold to an aggregator, who sells it to a second/third rate company...something like KingSpec.

If it does not meet their low standards, it is then sold to someone farther down the chain, and ends up in junk like this.

Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

 

[peachpuff]

Why is this even news?

 

[Colif]

The controller is the part that is lying, can attach any nand to it after that stage

1tb fake nvme from last year

 

[Amdlova]

In my country is plagued with that Chinese crap...
Even worse than Chinese. Is kingston nvme / sata failing and no one saying the truth.

Never put or never will put a storage device of a unknown brand on my computer...

 

[Colif]

Only bought Samsung so far. I know the above is a fake Samsung but I am realistic... I paid $400 for mine, and bought from a store I can trust, so I know its real. The price alone is enough to make me call that one fake.

Its a bit troubling that they aren't pretending to be so massive any more. 4tb exists... they normally say its half a petabyte or something. Makes spotting fakes harder. If they priced them at a price similar to the real ones, it be even harder to track... expect some already do. Perfect camouflage.

 

[USAFRet]

Why is this even news?

Because people buy these things.

We've had people here wanting to know how to unlock the "hidden storage" of one of these things.

And being very adamant about it not being a fake device.

 

[peachpuff]

Because people buy these things.

Naive people, big difference.

 

[Colif]

some buyers have insisted we are wrong and have a bias towards certain countries. No, we would do this no matter what country it comes from.

Finding out you have fallen for a scam really sucks. Hopefully its a learning experience. Hopefully you learn to check prices and if the product actually exists before paying for it.

 

[BogdanH]

Hmm.. I don't know why Samsung is mentioned in the article title... on SSD label I see no Samsung and to my knowledge Samsung doesn't even make 1080PRO model. It's like saying (Mercedes) A180 is a fake Audi -simply because Audi A6 exists.
Yes, it's welcomed if you point out the fact that we should be careful at buying, however that can be done more seriously, with less populism (a.k.a click bait). Just my opinion.

Bogdan

 

[Order 66]

The controller is the part that is lying, can attach any nand to it after that stage

1tb fake nvme from last year

Ok, so the controller just tells the OS whatever, but what is the actual capacity of the NAND on this drive?

 

[Colif]

could be anything from 32 to 120gb (these seem common sizes) and the speed might actually be pretty good right until drive is full and it won't even boot again (if used as a windows drive). And data written after might just copy over what you already put there or cause drive to freeze.

i probably need to update my sticky

 

[Order 66]

could be anything from 32 to 120gb (these seem common sizes) and the speed might actually be pretty good right until drive is full and it won't even boot again (if used as a windows drive). And data written after might just copy over what you already put there or cause drive to freeze.

i probably need to update my sticky

Agreed.

 

[Colif]

its still fairly accurate

i found one 32tb nvme but on inspection its just an enclosure that holds 4 nvme, and it costs $5580 so not exactly cheap.

largest nvme now is still 8tb. That is in consumer space, its something like 100tb in server space... but I am being realistic.

 

[Order 66]

its something like 100tb in server space... but I am being realistic.

Yes, LTT showed off A 100TB SSD for $40k a few years ago.