Samsung has been caught swapping out components in its 970 Evo Plus SSDs by a Chinese Youtuber, who has documented the sneaky find.

The company swapped out the previous Phoenix controller for a cheaper, and lower-performing drive from Elpis.

As 潮玩客 notes, the consumer model of the drive didn’t change, and the component serial number isn’t visible on the packaging, only shown on a label on the actual drive.

The Youtuber also tested the old model against the newer one, and found the newer one only manages to hit speeds of 830MiB/sec compared to 1,600+ MiB/sec.

No doubt component shortages were the reason for this quick swap, but it’s also likely that Samsung simply hoped nobody noticed.

As it stands, there are two versions of the 970 Evo Plus SSD on sale, and one is a lot better than the other. Unfortunately, until you buy it and unpack it, there is no way of telling which version you’ll be getting.