SSDs have become the standard storage solution for most modern computers. From low-end Windows devices to MacBooks, you’ll find an SSD in just about every price range. However, with so many different SSDs flooding the market, there’s also a rising problem of fake SSDs being in the mix.
While they look surprisingly genuine, fake SSDs can bring a host of problems to your device. Fake capacities, slow data transfer speeds, and random failures are all things you can face if you end up with a fake drive.
What Are Fake SSDs?
Fake SSDs are precisely what their name suggests. These low-speed drives, often with eMMC storage inside, are packaged in SSD containers and passed off as full-blown SSDs. Sometimes, a fake SSD might be a few TF cards or microSD cards connected to a controller board that shows up as an SSD when plugged into a computer.
While eMMC storage isn’t necessarily bad,compared to SSDs, it lags far behind in data transfer speed, reliability, and storage capacity. The same goes for fake SSDs with TF cards inside.
These drives can be programmed to show fake capacities and, in some cases, even act accordingly. This means that if a fake SSD has a 32 GB capacity and has been reprogrammed to show a 1TB capacity, it’ll start overwriting any old data as soon as its actual capacity starts filling up.
This means that fake SSDs are a nightmare for data security and, in most cases, will cause unrecoverable data loss. They’re also bad in terms of performance, often showing data transfer speeds equal to or even less than hard disk drives. Last but not least, they’re also a reliability disaster and can fail without any warnings or signs.
Spotting Fake SSDs in the Wild
Using a fake SSD on your computer can cause heaps of problems. Luckily, telling a fake SSD apart from a real one isn’t all that difficult.
One of the first steps in determining whether or not an SSD is fake is to inspect the packaging and specs carefully. More often than not, fake SSDs come with poor packaging that either feels extremely cheap to the touch, is riddled with misspellings, or has ridiculous specs.
For example, if you see an SSD from an unnamed company that claims 512GB storage with data transfer speeds of up to 15 GBps selling for $10, there’s a good chance it’s a fake.
Many fake SSDs also sell under reputed brand names like Kingston, Crucial, Samsung, Micron, and Western Digital, to name a few. Even the packaging might seem perfect in such cases, and the mentioned specs can be outright wrong. However, you’re able to still tell such fakes apart from real SSDs primarily because of the price they’re being sold at.
Finding a good deal on an expensive drive like Samsung’s 970 Evo Plus is one thing, but if it’s selling for the same price as your standard 64GB SD card, then something is for sure fishy.
Finally, branded SSDs also come with serial numbers you can check on the manufacturer’s website. If your SSD doesn’t have a serial number or has one that doesn’t check out against the manufacturer’s database, you’re almost certainly dealing with a fake SSD.
The point is to make sure you go over the drive specifications, inspect the packaging in person if you can, and make sure anything doesn’t seem out of order or too good to be true.
2. Inspect the Hardware
The second step is to inspect the drive physically. A cheap-feeling enclosure or the drive being too lightweight are all signs that you have a fake SSD on your hands. Fake SSDs will also often be a little soft, while genuine products often feel sturdy. A little bit of tactile feedback from physically inspecting the drive can give you a pretty good idea about its authenticity.
Checking the distribution stamp on your drive is also a good idea, as these stamps will prove the authenticity of a drive rather easily. However, if the distribution stamps are missing from the back of the drive or are blurry and have some sort of mistake on them, there’s a good chance that the drive is fake.
Two other tell-tale signs to look out for are a glossy finish on the drive and the existence of NAND cells. Most branded drives come with a glossy finish on top. While this doesn’t affect the drive’s performance, a drive with a matte finish can indicate cost-saving measures and a fake.
Additionally, most M.2 SSDs will have NAND cells on them. While the exact number of NAND cells doesn’t matter when it comes to authenticity, their existence can help determine that your drive is an SSD and not just a TF card or eMMC enclosure. We’ve coveredeverything you need to know about flash memoryif you need a refresher.
3. Running Software Analysis
Software analysis and using the drive are by far the most accurate ways of judging whether or not an SSD is real. You don’t need expensive programs or complicated terminal commands for this either—just a few big files and some common sense.
First, copy a few large files to the drive and check the data transfer speeds. you may cross reference the speeds you’re getting with other drives in the same price range to see if you’re getting good data transfer speeds. As long as you’re not too far behind, you’re good to go.
You can also attempt to run a few programs or games off of the SSD you’re testing. If the drive is fake, the reduced performance and increased loading times in games will almost instantly give it away.
Loading several big games on the drive will also help you test whether or not it actually has the capacity it shows. As mentioned above, smaller drives that are programmed to show up with bigger capacities when plugged into a computer replace old data as they near their storage limits.
So if you’re copying a 120GB game on a 32GB fake SSD programmed to show 1TB as its capacity, you’ll run into problems later when running the game, as all the required files aren’t on the drive. However, remember that just because all files were transferred successfully or if you couldn’t verify the SSD’s storage capacity, that doesn’t automatically make it a real SSD.
Spot Fake SSDs and Avoid Data Loss
Fake SSDs are getting increasingly common and can cause serious problems, including unrecoverable data loss, in addition to often having poor performance and fake storage capacities. They’re also highly unreliable and can be a risk to your system’s data security.
Fortunately, with a quick physical inspection or by running a few transfers on your systems, you can quickly tell a fake SSD from a real one. Finally, if you don’t have access to the drive you’re checking or are buying one online, remember that if an SSD is priced too good to be true, that likely is the case.
