Photo: RPS
China has been flooded with fakes for one of the most popular and best SSD models on the market, the Samsung 980 Pro. This became known from a series of tests conducted by a user of the Baidu Tieba forum under the nickname Harukaze5719.
Photo: Harukaze5719
The author of the publication purchased a 2 TB Samsung 980 Pro drive, which outwardly did not differ from the original. The fake was so good that it even managed to fool the Samsung Magician branded software, which confirmed the authenticity of the device. However, the user was alerted by the slower read and write speeds of the disk and decided to find the cause.
Photo: Harukaze5719
As it turned out, under the glossy stickers of the counterfeit SSD, there was a 12nm Maxio MAP1602A PCIe 4.0 controller without DRAM buffer memory, which is also used in the Acer Predator GM7. Fake also received 128-layer TLC 3D NAND memory from YMTC (X2-9060). The original drives are equipped with Elpis’ own 8nm controllers and Samsung’s TLC 3D V-NAND chips.
Photo: Harukaze5719
In the CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write speed tests, the fake delivered about 4.8 Gb / s and 4.5 Gb / s, respectively. For comparison, the real Samsung 980 Pro shows a result of 7 Gb / s and 5 Gb / s (depending on capacity).
Photo: Harukaze5719
In China, counterfeit Samsung 980 Pro 2TB are sold for $130 (~10,000 rubles), while original SSD drives start at $170 (~13,200 rubles). If something sounds too good to be true, then there is a catch in it.