Comment by senectus1
Had the same issue with a Crucial drive from amazon. looked just like the real thing but for some small discrepancies. Performed like an absolute dog and the SMART data was waaaay off.
amazon just refunded me the whole amount and I pulled it apart to see what was inside: https://imgur.com/a/NUSuuEh
quite annoying, though also amusing.
There is nothing obviously suspicious with what's inside. The SATA form factor was designed for HDDs; solid-state drives usually are not much larger than a M.2 drive.
These flash part numbers look like Intel. This is actually plausible; until 2018, Intel and Micron had a flash partnership. And while their Crucial brand has some good high-end drives, they are also willing to sell absolute bottom-of-the-barrel trash.
What are these discrepancies, and what's off in the SMART values?