The ongoing component shortage and mounting geopolitical uncertainty have created a tough time for the PC industry. Memory and NAND flash have been hardest hit in terms of price hikes, and the proliferation of counterfeit products only makes things worse for consumers. As reported by ComputerBase, a customer ("etoo") in Austria recently ordered two 1 TB Samsung 990 Pro SSDs, only to receive at least one fake drive that can't even be formatted.
Previously, we covered a similar story from Japan where a fake 990 Pro was benchmarked by a local outlet. That drive actually performed exceptionally well, but it seems like the dupes have now spread to Europe, too. The buyer placed an order with an Austrian retailer and received the box a few days later, as expected. The packaging was "deceptively real," carrying a seal and most of the same markings as the original.
But upon closer inspection, the copied text appeared to be lower resolution, but only when directly compared to the real box. It also lacked the hanging tab that has given away prior dupes. Getting inside leads to a dead giveaway, however, as this SSD features a blue PCB for some reason; the original is black. It's a conspicuous change if you know to look for it, but the stickers on the drive matched closely with the legit Samsung SSD.
When plugged in, the drive is detected inside Windows and tools like CrystalDiskInfo, but they strangely report a capacity of 1,099.5 GB, and the firmware version does not follow Samsung's naming convention. As such, the SSD is not picked up as a genuine product in Samsung's Magician software. It's recognized as "SSD 990" Pro but labeled "Non-Samsung," rendering all the diagnostics features and scans unavailable.
The fake 990 Pro couldn't be benchmarked either, because it couldn't even be formatted inside the operating system. This drive was a dud through and through, and it's clear that the bad actors didn't actually care about the scam beyond replicating the packaging. As insane as it sounds, we looked at another counterfeit 990 Pro that was slower than a USB 2.0 flash drive, but at least that drive technically worked.
ComputerBase says it has reached out to the Austrian vendor that supplied this clone, and the store is currently investigating the matter. The seller claimed no other fake drives have been brought to their attention, but the affected buyer also purchased a third 990 Pro that looks to have similar, altered packaging. The vendor has requested that they not open that one for the time being. Samsung has responded to the story already, with a quote recommending buyers to only purchase its products from certified retailers.
