How Not to Buy a SSD
6 days ago
- #SSD Performance
- #Consumer Awareness
- #Tech Scam
- Discovered extremely low transfer speeds (less than 600KB/s) on a 2006 iMac SSD after initial setup.
- Repair Disk utility improved speeds slightly to 2.6MB/s, still far below expected SATA III or USB 2.0 speeds.
- Suspected the SSD might be fake due to inconsistencies and failure during file transfers.
- Used F3 (Fight Flash Fraud) to test the SSD, but it became unusable, throwing errors during formatting.
- Noted the SSD might be a genuine 128GB Kingston SSD with modified firmware to appear as a larger capacity drive.
- Realized purchase was from a third-party seller on eMag (Romania's largest online retailer), falling for a 'fulfilled by' scam.
- Product listing was altered post-purchase, complicating return process; contacted eMag for resolution.
- eMag customer support initiated a return process, promising a refund.
- Testing revealed the drive's performance drastically dropped after reaching the 128GB mark, supporting the fake SSD theory.
- Final tests showed abysmal write speeds (~6 minutes per 1GB), indicating the drive was nearly full.