Once again, in China (AliExpress, Alibaba, etc.), you can make a serious killing or literally fall on “crap”. Obviously, Goldenfir SSDs are really shattered, even if they look like real SSDs. A 120 GB model went through the test bench, and it’s a real massacre!
Goldenfir, AliExpress’s 120 GB SSD for $3!
Clearly, this brand is a vast parody of what Sandisk 2.5″ SSDs were in their day. The logo is in red on a black background, with the range marked in white. In short, there’s no need to look for inspiration.
The big surprise, however, is inside, where we find a real SSD. The latter consists of a piece of PCB with a SATA interface and power socket. There’s even a memory controller, a Yeester YS9083XT (???), and memory chips. Worst of all, this model goes for a mere $2.99 on special offer, $14.27 in normal circumstances and €6.76 for the French version.
If so far, things are “Ok” and you don’t end up with MicroSDs in the case, it’s in testing that it proves catastrophic. Once plugged into a Lenovo server, the SSD confirms its technical specifications, and there’s no mistaking it. This Goldenfir even holds its own against a Kingston DC600M on CrystalDiskMark. Speeds are decent for SATA, with 550 MB/s sequential read and 520 MB/s write.
However, if you push it a little, you can’t count on it anymore. In CrystalDiskMark’s 64GB test, the Kingston SSD managed to complete it before the Chinese SSD had even started. Worse still, on VDBench, IOPS dropped and latency soared. Where the Kinston model boasts 80k IOPS and a latency of around 2 ms, the Goldenfir barely reaches 15k IOPS with a latency of 10 ms.
In the end, if you’re going to buy this, you might as well go for a USB stick. What’s more, this test doesn’t indicate how long the SSD will last.