PC World - USA (2021-02)

114 PCWorld FEBRUARY 2021

HERE’S HOW

IMAGE: GETTY IMAGES

T

he SSD you’ve bought may not be

exactly the SSD you think it is.

That’s because of a common

vendor practice of swapping out

internal parts due to supply, pricing pressure,

or other reasons.

Usually this practice has focused on the

NAND flash storage modules on SSDs, and

the vendor has met or exceeded the

promised specification. If the change is

significant, the vendors have usually changed

the SKU. But as Sean Webster of Tom’s

Hardware discovered in his investigation of

the Adata XPG 8200 Pro (go.pcworld.com/

sean), the company changed the SSD

controller without changing the name—

except the performance changed, for the

worse. There was no way of knowing the

Why you may not be getting

the SSD you paid for

SSD vendors may change a product during its lifespan, not always for the better.

BY JON L. JACOBI AND MELISSA RIOFRIO