Detection of Counterfeit/Fake Intel X25-M 80Gb (G2)

[idata]

Hi,

I recently purchased an Intel X25-M 80gb SSD from an online retailer. When I received the item there was several issues with missing packaging/accessories, the drive itself has some marks (possibly some type of corrosion).

1) Has anyone had issues with counterfit or fake drives? I ask because of the Intel sticker is an (Intel Inside - like sold with CPUs) rather than the Intel logo shown in all Internet publications.

2) Is there any good way to prove (by visual or hardware identification) that it is authentic/geniune? I assume the BIOS or the Intel SSD Toolkit would be a good starting place, but I'd like an informed opinion. Also the sticker on the back would be easily enough faked, so I don't think that is a valid method of verification. Not to mention that a lot of internet images of these SSDs have the model sticker on the top of the drive and it comforms to the contour of the moulded top plate - not sure if this might have changed or be different between oem or retail versions.

3) Is there any way to determine (assuming software/hardware) how much a drive has been used ie. like an internal usage counter? In case this item is legit, but used.

The retailer has just responded that although their ad specified a different model number and that the item would have the Intel packaging and accessories the product is (BULK) not retail.....

Thanks in advance,

Jason

[idata]

Drive just arrived! The logo is printed and therefore very slightly raised. Sealed in an anti-staic bag, code is C1 and spacer attached as before. Like my existing drive there is some light smearing / oxidation on the underside which I'll wager is from mucky fingers.

Oh and let's not forget it came with the all important "My SSD Rocks!" sticker!

[idata]

Thanks for the response Ziggy.

I'm glad to hear in some ways that there is some oxidization on the bottom. On the other hand I'm also disappointed. You would think that a 'sensitive' electronic device would only be handled with static free gloves etc and therefore should not ever get oxydization (at least from that).

Did a couple of tests last night in an external e-SATA caddy:

1) The Serial and Model detected matched the drives sticker

2) Tried to update the firmware to the new version, but the updater couldn't detect the drive - could be another issue with my system

3) Ran ATTO Performance tool and found that the performance was seemingly less than reviews had reported. Write speed was about right at a little over 70mb/s, but read speed was significantly less than the reported >200mb/s

Unfortunately the RAID which this was to replace just died and so I'm going to be a little short on testing today.

Thanks again,

Jason

[idata]

Your performance / update issues might be because you are running from an e-SATA controller. You have a free SATA port you can try it on? I just replaced a couple of Raptors in RAID with the 160GB. Thought I might miss the RAID but pleased so far. Anyway, I'd try updating on a SATA port and see how it goes. Good news that your drive appears to be the real deal though!

[idata]

I ordered a model that has the same Model info: SSDSA2M080G2GC Is this a legit drive, I purchased as a new drive from Ebay but havent recieved yet. I wasnt aware any intel counterfeit SSD existed but now Im concerned. I will run the Intel diags to check firmware and model info as soon as I recieve this. Is there any way to be certain that a drive is legit, I would thinking looking at the drives stats using the intel software you ought to be able to verify the info. If its counterfeit I can open a claim with PayPal/Ebay but I want to make certain. I was about to pull the trigger on one from NewEgg but the price was a little lower. The seller has been very responsive on my questions and seems legit but these days its hard to tell. Any help would be much appreciated as reliability is very important to me and I dont want the drive failing early with knock off memory. Thanks

[mmokk]

i have heard of shady sellers selling lower capacity drives as higher ones (by replacing the circuit board of a 160gb drive with a 40gb for example; takes less than a minute to do). some people don't even notice the capacity is wrong until much later.

what i would do if i were paranoid is:

- test performance (this may be limited by your hardware)

- test capacity (fill up the drive with files and then try to copy them off)

if these check out ok, i wouldn't worry about it further. but you can take it apart and inspect the circuit board if you want.

this is not widespread. it is not like buying flash memory off ebay where the probability of getting a counterfeit is very high.