How to spot fake Sata SSDs?

Hostile_18

Hostile_18

Hostile_18

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So got a brilliant deal this morning on three Evo 870 4tb Samsung Sata SSDs for £69.99 each. With it been a market place seller thought it would be easy to get a refund. Initial impressions seemed genuine. Established account, high volume 97% positive feedback, positive feedback from purchasers of same items, nothing referring to fake SSDs.

So when they come from China, what am I looking for to make sure they are genuine?
 
Depends how much effort you want to go to. Ideally you'd run a variety of random read/write and sequential to test whether the performance is close to what the manufacturer claims.

Probably worth also filling the drive up to max to check capacity, and also trigger any errors in smart data (as this could have been wiped).
 
Semple said:
Depends how much effort you want to go to. Ideally you'd run a variety of random read/write and sequential to test whether the performance is close to what the manufacturer claims.

Probably worth also filling the drive up to max to check capacity, and also trigger any errors in smart data (as this could have been wiped).
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Brilliant thank you. I'll definitely be filling one straight away to check. Got Crystal Mark/Check installed It's "New" so packaging + Serial numbers should be a good tell as well.
 
bazzastan said:
how to spot, well £69.99 for a Evo 870 4tb should be enough to say yeh fake.
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Even with an established account and very little negative feedback? (And nothing but positive for this item specifically. 77 sold.

Got good buyer protection so thought worth a chance. In my head it's unwanted bulk business purchase lol.
 
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Hostile_18 said:
Even with an established account and very little negative feedback? (And nothing but positive for this item specifically. 77 sold.

Got good buyer protection so thought worth a chance. In my head it's unwanted bulk business purchase lol.
Click to expand...

When you get them, plug them in and just download Samsung Magican software, it will tell you straight away if they are genuine or not, if it says no Samsung drives found, then they are fake
 
I've read up on it and there's even ones that fool Samsung Magician but ultimately it keeps re writing your data. What set alarm bells going is there's two other Chinese sellers selling at the same price. Doh.
 
The things I'm aware of:
- Manufacturer software.
- Software like crystaldiskinfo (benchmark it), hard disk sentinel.
- Google the firmware version and see what controller it says you have.
- Open it up and check the parts against reviews (can have warranty implications if the drive is genuine).
- Check the drive capacity (there are some tools that can do it better/faster than filling it yourself).
- Send the manufacturer the batch code/serial number or put it into a warranty checker.
- Download high resolution photos from a review or watch unboxing videos and compare them to your drive.
- See if the holograms (if any) are suitably shiny/authentic in their appearance.
- If a commonly counterfeit drive, watch YouTube videos that show you the telltale signs.
- Look @ the packaging carefully, especially the colours and fonts used as poor quality fakes get these wrong.
 
Hostile_18 said:
I've read up on it and there's even ones that fool Samsung Magician but ultimately it keeps re writing your data. What set alarm bells going is there's two other Chinese sellers selling at the same price. Doh.
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This is feedback concerning the same drive you purchased for the same price (from a different Chinese seller/account probably).
The drive will not copy more than 121GB of files. Even the label ON THE SSD looks fake. It maybe a samsung drive but it is not a 4TB drive size. This is a classic scam. ***buyer beware do not buy this ssd*** Hopefully getting a refund.
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So if you do get something I suspect they are just 128GB drives modded to look like 4TB drives. If it's too good to be true.... ;) The fact it's coming from China for such a cheap price is an automatic fake/scam alert.
 
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fake in terms of capacity is relatively easy.

Sopy around 4tb of data onto it from an existing drive, then copy it back and check to make sure what's copied back matches the original.
Although this does require you to have around 4tb of free storage on other drives.

But for me it would be ringing all sorts of alarms unless it was a known seller who usually sold the same sort of thing, i keep seeing extremely cheap memory cards etc and they all appear to be sellers with a lot of ratings but often for other stuff, or new sellers.
 
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