Do yourself a favor and stop buying these cheap SSD drives flooding the market

## Summary
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET According to the printing on the drive, it was a "Moblle Sdud State" SSD. The storage chip had a few numbers on it, but they didn't pull up anything useful -- no data sheet, no specifications -- only a Russian YouTube video of someone having issues with a USB flash drive. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes?ZDNET The drive was dead Nothing happened when it was connected. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET Cheap storage drives are a no from me And this is why I'm completely against cheap storage drives (and USB flash drives, SD cards, and microSD cards, for that matter) from no-name manufacturers.

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Do yourself a favor and stop buying these cheap SSD drives flooding the market
These no-name storage devices are unreliable, dangerous, and may just flat out arrive defective.
Written by
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes,
Senior Contributing Editor
Senior Contributing Editor
March 26, 2026 at 6:59 a.m. PT
Reviewed by
Elyse Betters Picaro
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Recently, an acquaintance mentioned that a backup drive containing essential work data had failed. They noted the drive had become "painfully slow" before dying completely, adding that the device had always been sluggish and unreliable.
Just what you want from a
storage drive.
Modern storage drives are reliable, right?
Since they didn't live too far, I suggested they drop it off. I'd take a look at it and see if I can recover the lost data.
After all, modern storage drives are quite reliable, and most of the time, when they go funny, it's because of some file structure glitch.
I was hopeful -- right up until the moment I saw the drive.
Oh no!
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
According to the printing on the drive, it was a "Moblle Sdud State" SSD.
LOL
You know when you want to laugh out loud, but at the same time, you try to remain professional, and your face says it all? Yeah, that was me when I saw this.
According to the owner, the drive was "a 128 terabytes, or gigabytes," but looking at it, I was convinced it wasn't either. I suspected it either contained a
microSD drive
(yup, unscrupulous manufacturers stuff a microSD card reader -- complete with a microSD card -- into a case and sell them as "SSDs"), or it was a USB flash drive chip.
Opening the drive to see what disappointments lay inside!
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
I popped the drive open and found the latter. About as basic as you can get.
The storage chip had a few numbers on it, but they didn't pull up anything useful -- no data sheet, no specifications -- only a Russian YouTube video of someone having issues with a USB flash drive.
The numbers on the storage chip didn't help.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes?ZDNET
The drive was dead
Nothing happened when it was connected. It was completely unresponsive. I examined the drive under a microscope to look for damage, even found an identical drive online for $10, and used an air gun to lift the memory chip from the dead drive and solder it into the replacement drive -- all without success.
It was completely dead.
Also:
I traveled with one of the most secure SSDs ever - and never felt more relaxed
Short of sending the drive to one of those expensive data recovery firms (I was assured the data on the drive wasn't that important), it was gone.
It's also odd that the manual for the drive seems to talk about it being compatible with M.2 drives. Maybe it was the manual for something else
There's no M.2 compatibility anywhere on this drive.
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET
Cheap storage drives are a no from me
And this is why I'm completely against cheap storage drives (and USB flash drives, SD cards, and microSD cards, for that matter) from no-name manufacturers. They usually use poor-quality chips -- often seconds -- and they've been doctored to appear to have more storage than they actually do.
If you've got data worth storing, at least do yourself a favor and buy something decent. Sure, it's going to cost more than $10, but not by much. Fo

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- I examined the drive under a microscope to look for damage, even found an identical drive online for $10, and used an air gun to lift the memory chip from the dead drive and solder it into the replacement drive -- all without success.
- Also: I traveled with one of the most secure SSDs ever - and never felt more relaxed Short of sending the drive to one of those expensive data recovery firms (I was assured the data on the drive wasn't that important), it was gone.

### Areas for Consideration
N/A

### Implications
- When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.
- When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions.
- This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay.
- If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers drive, zdnet, storage topics. Notable strengths include discussion of drive. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1051.