Lite-On SSD's off eBay

dexvx

[H]ard|Gawd
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I vaguely remember reading that Lite-On SSD's are just rebadged Plextor's. Based on some eBay research, it looks like they're used in Lenovo and Dell laptops. I picked up a used LCS-128M6S (128GB, SATA III) off eBay for $65 shipped, which seemed like a good deal. The closest Plextor's are the M5S and the M5P (for over $100 on NE).

I used CrystalDiskInfo and my particular unit only had 1 power on hour with 23 power counts.

This seems to perform somewhere inbetween a 128GB M5S and M5P (done using SATA III on an Asus Z77 board).

Z77-LCS-128M6S.png
 
With anything on ebay, buyer beware and make sure to thoroughly check to make sure it's legitimate. Especially the capacity.
 
What kind of tools do you recommend for testing SSD/HDD's?

I mean, beyond just copying a 100GB file on it.
 
The same tools you use to verify flash drive capacity. Which is basically writing 119 GB worth of data to it and then verifying that it is all there.
 
With anything on ebay, buyer beware and make sure to thoroughly check to make sure it's legitimate. Especially the capacity.

So true. I've seen lots of reports about counterfeits of name brand flash cards, all coming out of you-know-where. No reason why those crooks can't go into SSDs.
 
I'm away now, but once I'm back, I'll run the utility mentioned above to write 1GB file chunks onto the SSD until it's full and checksum them.

Having owned Intel/Plextor SSD's, this one is ridiculously light and seems really cheap. But the CDMark scores are representative of a 128GB SSD. If it were only a 64GB drive, the writes would literally be halved. But we'll see.

Thanks
 
haven't heard of any counterfeit ssds but theres a first time for everything

If you know how to counterfeit a flash USB drive, it's only a small step to doing the same with an SSD. And face it, plenty of legit stuff is sold from China on eBay. Me, about 2 months ago, I bought a GPS that plugs into my D SLR from a company called Solmeta. (works very well, by the way) I could have bought it from Amazon or directly. Same product, same price.
 
Ran h2testw and Western Digital's diagnostics, and drive looks to be good.

Basically wrote 1GB files to the drive until it was full, as well as doing data verification. Also did a sector test using WD's diagnostics.
 
It's not just from China though, fake products can come from anywhere. So when on ebay, unless you're buying from a legitimate store selling on ebay (i.e. Newegg or TigerDirect), you should always be aware and check everything.
 
Aren't you guys a bit too paranoid? If the speeds are consistent with expectations I think the drive is legit. SSD controllers are really advanced and it's taken quite a while to reach current performance figures. It's unlikely that a counterfeiting group can produce a chip as good as the Marvel parts going into these Plextors (SSD's are VERY different from flash drives). And then there is NAND quality needed to hit those numbers. I wouldn't bother sacrificing a full drive write if speeds check out.

edit: I guess it's possible to cheat popular benchmarks with preinstalled software somehow...is that what you guys are talking about?
 
I think writing to the whole SSD, even if it does take a toll (but still really small compared to the relative write endurance of the drive), is worth it for diagnostic purposes.

With that said, "faking" an SSD is on a whole other level compared to USB sticks. The counterfeiters would have to go through the trouble of faking the firmware to read as a Marvel firmware. They would also have to somehow come up with a controller and NAND that actually does 500MB/s Read and 300MB/s writes. At this point, they would probably be just outright selling SSD's.

There definitely are risks associated with buying used merchandise on eBay. These come with 0 warranty (other than the usual 30 day return policy of most buyers).
 
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