Redditor buys 2TB Samsung 990 PRO SSD, gets scammed: locked to 20MB/sec, like a 2005 USB stick

A user on Reddit purchased a fake 2TB Samsung 990 PRO SSD, ending up with a fake SSD that performed like a USB stick from 2005 at just 20MB/sec... instead of what it's actually capable of at 7000MB/sec+ (7GB/sec) reads.

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The drive detected normally at first, with Windows detecting it as the Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD, but the link speed showed PCIe 3.0 x4 instead of PCIe 4.0... the first clue. After that, the Redditor experienced super-slow file transfers, with large copies only hitting 20MB/sec reads and 9-10MB/sec writes, with CrystalDiskMark noting the same numbers... where he should be getting 7000MB/sec reads... much, much faster.

The Redditor started off with "A few days ago, a friend of mine (who's a PC peripherals distributor and someone I've bought legit stuff from before) posted that he had Samsung 990 PRO 2TB units for sale at just 19,000 INR ($205 USD). Official price right now is usually 30,000+ INR (even more on Amazon/Flipkart sometimes), so yeah way too good to be true. But since I know the guy and have history with him, I didn't overthink it. Messaged him, booked one, paid, and it arrived the next day".

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Then the weird stuff started happening: "Looked normal... until I tried transferring large files. Speeds tanked to ~20 MB/s read and ~9-10 MB/s write. Like, what? Ran CrystalDiskMark to confirm - same disaster: 22 MB/s sequential read, 10 MB/s write. That's slower than most USB 2.0 sticks, not even close to PCIe 3.0 levels (should be ~3,000+ MB/s) or full PCIe 4.0 (~7,000+ MB/s)".

He "Thought maybe firmware glitch or thermal throttling or something dumb. Updated drivers, checked BIOS (PCIe set correctly), reseated the drive nothing. Finally downloaded Samsung Magician (official tool) and ran the drive scan..."

In the end: "Boom - it flagged the SSD as COUNTERFEIT / NOT GENUINE. Magician straight-up said it's fake. That explained everything. These counterfeit 990 PROs are getting scarily good at mimicking detection in Windows and basic tools, but they use cheap NAND (often tiny capacity relabeled as 2TB/4TB) and perform like garbage once you push real data".