Bogus Samsung 980 & 990 Pro SSDs Circulating Online, Performs Worse Than a USB Stick

Bogus hardware components have been doing the rounds at major retailers, and now fake Samsung 980 & 990 Pro SSDs have surfaced online, courtesy of the overclocking expert Roman Hartung "der8auer".

Several Fake Samsung 980 & 990 Pro SSDs Retailing On AliExpress, Degraded Performance With Much Less Capacity

There were several SSDs tested by Roman, but the fishiest one was the "Samsung 980 EVO 4 TB" listed on AliExpress. First, we should let our readers know that a "980 EVO" model doesn't exist which is a big red flag initially. Moreover, the SSD was retailing for around €40, which is a significantly low price, especially considering that it is a 4TB variant. One of Roman's subscribers brought the SSD to light, so he decided to go into the depths of the "bogus" Samsung SSD.

Getting into the depths of the fake "980 EVO", the box revealed a rather unprofessional font and design, making it evident that the product isn't original. Apparently, the manufacturers didn't think "behind" the copying process, and the advertised read and write speeds of the supposedly NVMe weren't even close to a traditional SATA SSD. The T&C behind the box ironically quoted Samsung for warranty service and there were slogans for previous-gen SSDs.

Unboxing the SSD revealed that the company had made every attempt to exclude the "Samsung" branding. This was probably done to avoid potential lawsuits or defamation cases from the company. Upon removing the sticker, further "fraudulent" attempts to hide identity were evident, such as on the in-built controller, the markings of the vendor were removed through lasers. The flash chips signal towards a Micron product, but the details weren't unclear.

Things got a bit interesting When the SSD was tested through Crystal Disk Mark. The software did show a 4TB storage but this most of the time, is the case for such SSDs. The decisive point came at H2testw (an app that fills data into a storage device to check maximum capacity). Initial testing revealed that the write speeds drastically dropped when the SSD reached the 100GB mark, making it clear that the 4TB branding was indeed a gimmick.

Crystal Disk Mark speed tests show that the SSD had a read and write speed of 36.25 MB/s and 0.84 MB/s, respectively. The results are a total disaster and the SSD performed much worse than a conventional USB stick.

Apart from the fake "Samsung 980 EVO 4TB", Roman also tested a variety of other products that were too bogus as expected such as the Samsung 980 Pro and Samsung 990 Pro. This certainly raises concerns about the authenticity of a retailer as big as AliExpress. Several unaware consumers often fall into such traps and ultimately face degraded performance after some time. We advise readers not to fall for such ads since they are usually either fake or a deteriorated version of the original product.