Do Chinese SSD brands deserve a round-up?

[darkghosthunter]

I don't know about you guys, but I've seen Chinese bands popping up in Amazon (thus, following their trail back to Aliexpress) and other markets/stores with mixed reviews. While some praise their price and first impressions on performance, other may raise reliability and corners cut.

 

I think a roundup would be excellent to dissipate doubts about Chinese brands reliability and pricing, compared to other known brands with more pedigree on the market.
 

Quote

 

Note that most of NAND Flash, the chips used in all SSD, have many manufacturers. You may have heard about Samsung (South Korea), JMicron (Taiwan), Kioxia (Japan), Micron (United States) and SanDisk (United States). From the Wikipedia list, InnoGrit, Maxio and Starblaze manufacture NAND Flash in China.

 

That doesn't mean these are not assembled in China. Also, I suspect manufacturers will assign different chips to different products tiers. For example, it's totally normal for TeamGroup (Taiwan) to use the InnoGrit controller with Micron chips for their TForce tier. 

 

Anyway, from what I could gather:

• KingSpec
• Goldenfir
• XrayDisk
• WalRam [2] [3] [4]
• Kootion
• HikSemi
• Lexar (acquired 2017 by Longsys, China)
• Puskill
• Fanxiang [2]
• Orico (found recently they do SSD too)

And some that I consider lesser known:

• Fikwot
• Oscoo
• Asgard
• Movespeed
• Kunup
• Xishuo
• Wicgtyp [2]
• KingFast

I have to say that almost all have their own official store in AliExpress (no wonder being the consumer arm of Alibaba). I don't know if these are just brand new consumer spinoff from an OEM, or are just ephemeral brands that change name after a year to avoid any post-sale responsibility. Other brands seems to have many stores available depending on the user location.

 

I would be cool to have a single 1TB NVMe Gen 3/4/5 from all of these manufacturers, and stress them. It would be also cool to have them dispatched to different locations to avoid the usual "here is a cherry picked sample because is LTT"... unless the courier sticker goes after the fact. 

 

My theories?

1. Most drives (> 80%) will work at their theorical speed.
2. Most drives (> 80%) will fall below performance on sustained workloads on mere seconds.
3. Few drives (< 20%) will crawl when the drives are filled with 90% of data.
4. Very few drives (< 10%) will die inexplicably after a few cycles of drive fills.
5. Very few drives (< 10%) will die or present problems when near limit temperature of operation.
6. Very few brands (< 10%) will respect proper RMA process.

Bonus points if they also put into the mix similar products from Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital / SanDisk, Crucial, AData, Kingston, Toshiba, Sabrent, Corsair, Patriot, and what else.

 

PS: I hope those in AliExpress who put 5 stars on reviews just because the item got into their door have to eat glass while stepping on lego as they run away from a bull during San Fermín. And they live.

[da na]

I'm not John Linus himself, but I can tell you this much:

Suspicious SSDs have improved a good deal from a few years back. I do laptop repairs and I'm always searching for a new cheap but reliable drive to use, so I've started purchasing samples from a few of these brands. In my opinion, there isn't much of a place when competing drives from real brands (Lexar, Patriot, SiliconPower, Adata etc) exist within 10% of the price here in the US, but I could certainly see the appeal of Chinese drives if you can't get your hands on one of the drives mentioned above.

I've tested KingSpec, Kingchuxing, Bliksem, Somnambulist, Dogfish, Tech Magnet, Leven, Ritek, and a couple Xraydisk - they all performed within spec and I haven't seen one fail yet after several months of use. Mostly not the brands you mentioned above but that just goes to show that there is a near-infinite number of these on the market, and the good news is, they're all made in the same factory anyway. On the inside, a couple looked suspiciously similar, sharing controller part numbers and near identical SMD placement. I suspect a ton of these drives are the same thing with different labels.

[aisle9]

The cheapest 1TB SSDs on Newegg and Amazon are $39.99 and $41.99, respectively. Sorta shady brands in Neo and Timetec, sure, but you can get stuff by Silicon Power or Patriot for that price too.

 

The cheapest 1TB SSD I could find on AliExpress was from a brand called "Xraydisc", listed on special for $26. Good price? Yep. Search "Xraydisc SSD" on Google. You'll find a 1TB NGFF drive from Amazon with a total of 3 ratings, all one star, and every single one says the drive either failed during Windows installation or was fake. A second M.2 drive from Xraydisc listed on Amazon says more or less the same thing: the drive failed repeatedly out of the box. Sources below.

 

Do you trust a company that's knowingly pushing fake SSDs to honor their "3-year warranty"? Nope, neither do I. And that's why I won't be buying any SSDs off of AliExpress anytime soon. It's way too easy for a company to buy a pallet of 120GB SSDs, fuck with the firmware so they say 1TB, sell them off at "bargain prices", then disappear when the warranty claims roll in.

 

So...maybe the second-cheapest drive on AliExpress, then? It's by WALRAM, and it costs...$35. So that's a $5 savings over a real SSD from a real company selling on a platform with a real return policy. So go ahead, Google "WALRAM SSD", and you'll see a couple of YouTube videos about how awesome the drive is and where to buy it in Pakistan...and in the comments, you'll see people saying some of the same things that were being said about Xraydisc.

 

I know there are Youtubers out there who love to brag about getting great deals on SSDs from AliExpress, and good for them. They can afford to buy 500 of them for $5 each or whatever and deal with the ones that die (then put the ones that don't into the PCs they sell...food for thought). I personally can't afford to get raped by spending $26 or $34 or whatever on an SSD, having it die in 32 days, then having to fork out an additional $40 to just buy the damn drive I should have bought in the first place. Your situation may be different, as could the situation of others reading this thread, but for my money there is just no reason to gamble on AliExpress SSDs. Most of them are fake, dying or dead, and when you get to the remotely reputable brands (KingSpec), it costs the same or more and you have to wait 3 weeks instead of 3 days.

 

Rant over. People making poor decisions about what drives to trust their data to is a pet peeve of mine, and usually those poor decisions are guided by a desire to save a few bucks.

 

Xraydisc reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/XrayDisk-Internal-1000GB-Compatible-Desktop/product-reviews/B09JBFQ1JQ

https://www.amazon.com/XrayDisk-Internal-1000GB-Compatible-Desktop/dp/B09SG2C5Z6

[darkghosthunter]

Well, there are two contrasted opinions on the matter: "fine" and "fake" SSD.

 

That's why I think it would be good to look into even buying from Amazon and AliExpress for the same model.

 

With an amount of SSD lying around on the market, some conclusions could be done about the origin of "mass produced" NVMe drives. Hopefully, find which are making them, and how these are sold to other companies so these can stick their own branding.

 

It would be funny if LTT could even buy a pallet of these, stick the LTT logo on them, and sell them as keychains, knowingly these are perfectly functional NVMe drives.

[darkghosthunter]

On 11/29/2023 at 10:00 PM, da na said:

I'm not John Linus himself, but I can tell you this much:

 

Suspicious SSDs have improved a good deal from a few years back. I do laptop repairs and I'm always searching for a new cheap but reliable drive to use, so I've started purchasing samples from a few of these brands. In my opinion, there isn't much of a place when competing drives from real brands (Lexar, Patriot, SiliconPower, Adata etc) exist within 10% of the price here in the US, but I could certainly see the appeal of Chinese drives if you can't get your hands on one of the drives mentioned above.

 

I've tested KingSpec, Kingchuxing, Bliksem, Somnambulist, Dogfish, Tech Magnet, Leven, Ritek, and a couple Xraydisk - they all performed within spec and I haven't seen one fail yet after several months of use. Mostly not the brands you mentioned above but that just goes to show that there is a near-infinite number of these on the market, and the good news is, they're all made in the same factory anyway. On the inside, a couple looked suspiciously similar, sharing controller part numbers and near identical SMD placement. I suspect a ton of these drives are the same thing with different labels.

Well, in the US there is the location advantage. Outside US, you're paying the shipping + import tax. That goes if you buy it from Amazon, or your local dealer who bought it from the distributor who also takes its cut.

 

Some locations have some commercial arrangements to make import taxes less heavy on the consumer, like AliExpress, which is on the vogue. 

 

Sum those app, and the difference between "chinese brand" 1TB and a "trustful" 1 TB can be even double the price. In some cases, its the difference between getting one, and getting none at all.

 

So yeah, I think it would be enlightening for everybody not in US soil.

 

On 11/29/2023 at 10:45 PM, aisle9 said:

The cheapest 1TB SSDs on Newegg and Amazon are $39.99 and $41.99, respectively. Sorta shady brands in Neo and Timetec, sure, but you can get stuff by Silicon Power or Patriot for that price too.

 

The cheapest 1TB SSD I could find on AliExpress was from a brand called "Xraydisc", listed on special for $26. Good price? Yep. Search "Xraydisc SSD" on Google. You'll find a 1TB NGFF drive from Amazon with a total of 3 ratings, all one star, and every single one says the drive either failed during Windows installation or was fake. A second M.2 drive from Xraydisc listed on Amazon says more or less the same thing: the drive failed repeatedly out of the box. Sources below.

 

Do you trust a company that's knowingly pushing fake SSDs to honor their "3-year warranty"? Nope, neither do I. And that's why I won't be buying any SSDs off of AliExpress anytime soon. It's way too easy for a company to buy a pallet of 120GB SSDs, fuck with the firmware so they say 1TB, sell them off at "bargain prices", then disappear when the warranty claims roll in.

 

So...maybe the second-cheapest drive on AliExpress, then? It's by WALRAM, and it costs...$35. So that's a $5 savings over a real SSD from a real company selling on a platform with a real return policy. So go ahead, Google "WALRAM SSD", and you'll see a couple of YouTube videos about how awesome the drive is and where to buy it in Pakistan...and in the comments, you'll see people saying some of the same things that were being said about Xraydisc.

 

I know there are Youtubers out there who love to brag about getting great deals on SSDs from AliExpress, and good for them. They can afford to buy 500 of them for $5 each or whatever and deal with the ones that die (then put the ones that don't into the PCs they sell...food for thought). I personally can't afford to get raped by spending $26 or $34 or whatever on an SSD, having it die in 32 days, then having to fork out an additional $40 to just buy the damn drive I should have bought in the first place. Your situation may be different, as could the situation of others reading this thread, but for my money there is just no reason to gamble on AliExpress SSDs. Most of them are fake, dying or dead, and when you get to the remotely reputable brands (KingSpec), it costs the same or more and you have to wait 3 weeks instead of 3 days.

 

Rant over. People making poor decisions about what drives to trust their data to is a pet peeve of mine, and usually those poor decisions are guided by a desire to save a few bucks.

 

Xraydisc reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/XrayDisk-Internal-1000GB-Compatible-Desktop/product-reviews/B09JBFQ1JQ

https://www.amazon.com/XrayDisk-Internal-1000GB-Compatible-Desktop/dp/B09SG2C5Z6

 

That's harsh but on point. Seems that some of these brands have no interest on trying to make good impressions on Amazon, or their handler on Amazon decided to fuck them up.

 

I'm not following YouTubers who test drives that aren't trustful, or anything really. That trust is by doing proper benchmarks, like sustained read and write.

 

Same as above, on US that $5 difference is negligible for the consumer and you're [ this close ] for a respectful brand that didn't pop out from magic. On other places, that gap is too big to consider the pricier, but less _risky_, option.