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]

thanks for the response Crspyjohn.

Just wanted to confirm you said 'No' you don't have the same Intel logo on your SSD as the official web sites? Did you mean you don't have the same sticker as my drive?

Thanks,

Jason

[idata]

See how the intel logo is engraved on the ssd? That's how my is. Actually my drive looks exactly the same as the one on newegg now

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=20-167-018-Z01&SpinSet=20-167-018-RS&ISList...

[idata]

Thought I'd just finish off this posting by saying that I now believe the drive is real.

I put the SSD into another more recent PC and ran the same performance test which yeilded 170mb/s read. I then updated the firmware successfully (which I couldn't on the other machine). After the update I got about ~220mb/s.

I guess the only outstanding issue is the engraved Intel logo missing, however I think I'm just going to let it be. It seems relatively conclusive that the drive is genuine if the firmware update worked and I am now running Windows 7 successfully. I think I'll rerun the performance test on Win 7 (back in the old machine) and see what results I get.

Thanks again everyone for your help!

[RGiff]

If you run the tool box it can give you the serial number of the drive and than you could check with Intel to see if it's a valid serial number.