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Beware the fake Samsung 980 Pro SSD

by on20 March 2023


The jaws that bite, the claws that catch 

The three year old Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 drive is becoming the knock off of choice with some rather good forgeries suddenly appearing.

According to Toms’ Hardware one phony drive was so good that the mysterious drive even managed to fool the Samsung Magician software. Once the sticker was removed, the drive had all the signs of a counterfeit SSD.

The SSD uses the Maxio MAP1602A PCIe 4.0 SSD controller, the same one that powers the Acer Predator GM7. The SSD controller comes from TSMC's 12nm process node and features a DRAM-less design.

It uses an 8nm Elpis controller with a DRAM design with controllers which are larger than Samsung’s rivals.

The fake Samsung 980 Pro drive uses YMTC's 128-layer TLC 3D NAND (X2-9060) built with the Chinese chipmaker's Xtacking 2.0 technology.

The bogus drive can’t perform like a real Samsung 980 Pro and has sequential read and write speeds of around 4.8 GBps and 4.5 GBps, respectively, in CrystalDiskMark and up to 4.2 GBps and 3.9 GBps in AS SSD.

The merchant sold fake Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSDs on Xianyu, Taobao's second-hand market, for $127.77. The drives even come in official Samsung packaging. The price alone makes it easy to see that the SSD is a sham. The actual drive currently retails for $169.99 on the U.S. market.

The makers of these fake drives have infiltrated US retailers as third-party sellers. It is possible to see $39 30TB portable SSD on Walmart or the $100 16TB SSD on Amazon and these are just silly. But a higher end SSD like the Samsung 980 Pro PCIe 4.0 shows the scammers are upping their game.

 

Last modified on 20 March 2023
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