Samsung is renowned for producing some of the best SSDs you can get your hands on, but class-leading performance comes at a price. It’s no wonder then that the discovery of incredibly cheap Samsung solid-state drives would bring in some heavy skepticism.
YouTuber and tech expert der8auer was right to be perplexed by the existence of these alleged Samsung SSDs. Discovered on AliExpress, a fan of der8auer posted a link to alleged Samsung solid-state drives on his Discord server which seemed too good to be true, because they were.
The first SSD in question was the ‘Samsung’ 980 Evo with 4TB. AliExpress was selling the SSD for €40 ($44). Already brows were raised, as not only does the 980 Evo not exist, even just a 2TB Samsung branded SSD can cost upwards of $150. Nevertheless, der8auer bought the SSD to see what exactly was going on, and to hopefully avoid any of his fans wasting their money on knock-off PC hardware parts.
In a video, Der8auer revealed the alleged 980 Evo, and its box alone was full of red flags to the tech expert, and us alike. Among the myriad of issues was the absence of a Samsung logo, and an advertising slogan for an older 870 Evo pasted on the back. When getting a better look at the SSD itself, the connector on the actual card was entirely different to the one shown, and there were no identifiers to this being a Samsung product. During testing, although the SSD displayed a 3.52TB capacity, the read and write speeds of 560MB/s and 530MB/s, as shown on the box, actually resulted in an excruciatingly slow 36.35MB/s and 0.84MB/s.
Der8auer also bought some other questionable SSDs which were available on the AliExpress site. Two external, alleged ‘Seagate’ SSDs, with one an apparent 64TB capacity and another with 128TB were purchased, along with a M.2 drive claiming to be a ‘Samsung 990 Pro 4TB.’ Although an official 990 Pro does actually exist, there isn’t yet one with 4TB.
I can understand why these PC hardware parts would be attractive to a general consumer, especially with how expensive it can be building or upgrading your own gaming PC. However, I’d always advise buying your SDD’s from trusted retailers, to ensure you get a genuine product. Although it may be possible to save money by purchasing a knock off solid-state drive, there’s no true way to fully assess the plethora of issues that installing one could pose to your setup.
If you’re looking to upgrade your solid-state drive, we have a list of some of the best SSDs and don’t worry, they’re all genuine! You can also check out our list of the best graphics cards, if your gaming PC is in dire need of a big graphical boost, too.