Samsung is one of the most well-known technology giants around the Globe. Its wide variety of products includes some of the best SSDs in the market. 980 Pro was one of their top SSD products for a long time. It was one of their top-selling products, too. Although the 990 succeeded the 980, consumers still buy its predecessor. Some might look in the second-hand market for a better price. The Chinese Market is one of the largest in the World and even offers hard-to-resist products at a street price. The same rule applies to its second-hand market, as well. But, it is also well-known that you should be very careful when you trust them. Learning about people scammed by this kind of trade is not unusual.
This seems to be the case with the 980 Pro counterfeits. When a product is well-regarded and successful, there are also counterfeit offers. They are usually offered at a meaningfully lower price but sold as the original ones. Of course, most of the time doesn’t perform as well as the actual products or offer the same quality level. So, it is advised to be very cautious. If something seems too good to be true, it usually isn’t.
A Chinese user seemed to fall recently for a 980 Pro counterfeit. As it became known in Baidu Tieba forums, the scam SSD was sold at about 130 USD, opposing the 170 USD price tag of the original, in the Chinese second-hand Market, Xianyu. In my opinion, it wasn’t way cheaper, after all. It also came in the official packaging of the original SSD. To make things even harder, the counterfeit had a 980 Pro 2TB sticker and fake firmware that fooled even Samsung’s Magician software. The user had to remove the sticker to find out the truth.
The counterfeit utilizes a TSMC’s DRAM-less 12nm process node controller, the Maxio MAP1602A PCIe 4.0 SSD. This is opposed to the DRAM 8nm Elpis controller utilized in the original 980 Pro. The scam uses X2-9060 (YTMC TLC 3D NAND, 128-layer) of Xtacking 2.0 technology. The original 980 Pro offers 128-layer TLC 3D V-NAND. That means the counterfeit’s performance is way lower than the original’s. As was expected, the user posted benchmarks showing about a 20% performance drop opposing the original 980 Pro. This alone is a big disappointment.
As was already stated, being cautious with the second-hand market is strongly advised. The Chinese market is a perfect example of how easily you can fall for a scam. The general rule of thumb is when something is too good to be true; then it probably isn’t. Be cautious, and stay in the know.
Glad to see reports about the questionable solid state drives are spreading quickly. I came across several web sites in other countries that suggest there were several fake Samsung models, including one model that was not in production.
There is also a problem with the fake retail sites with prices too good to be true. The last two days I searched for a new television and a new pc monitor for my sister-in-law. I came across three sites that appeared to be fake sites. According to google street maps, one address was for a cemetery. The second address was for a large open grassy field with no structures. The third address was for what appears to be an abandoned warehouse. A telephone number for one fake site had an area code that did not match the address. The number was out of service. There was no answer for the two other sites.
Yes, this is a severe issue. Actually u gave me an idea for an article about these scams.
I bought two 2TB 980 Pros recently from Amazon – do you know if there an easy way to tell the fakes?
If the seller was Amazon then it is most likely original. Even third-party sellers on Amazon are likely trustworthy most of the time. This incident was in the Chinese market. You can run benchmarks to see if it reaches its advertised speeds, check info with hwinfo and crystaldisk info, and check the stickers. But most likely are genuine.
Another fake ssd scam has been reported by a Chinese web site. Apparently a customer purchased what was supposed to be an external 512GB M.2 NVME SSD. After experiencing very poor performance the ssd enclosure was removed and revealed a simple pcb, twp MicroSD cards, an antiquated controller, and a USB 2 port. The Chinese web site also reported the fake ssd was showing up for sale at other web sites.
Chinese scamming Market strikes back. I am amazed how many scams can be found.
I JUST received my 4TB 990 PRO that I ordered online and paid a STEAL OF A DEAL PRICE @ $54.
Do you think it might be a knock off lmao?
Anyway the sticker on the face will not have the Samsung name on the top right.
It will also not have the website and authentication underneath the 990 PRO in red (this alone made it look convincing.)
I have the 4 TB NvME drive now, and am planning to still install it in my PC.
The read and write aren’t going to be the same UP TO 7600 that we are used to with the 990 PRO, I suspect it will run at a much slower rate of around 5000 instead.
4TB for $54, hm…