I’m actually super in favor of these weird parts made with salvaged components in China.

You can also find laptop CPUs transformed into desktop platforms with a motherboard included.

The sellers are also surprisingly open about it - they explain the limitations and hacky patches to make them work.

I don’t see anything wrong with this tbh. If they’re harvesting these from recycled devices, what else are you going to do with the chips? Throw them out?

Instead of throwing the NAND away, which increases electronic waste, the factories recycle them into cheaper products or sell them to local companies, giving rise to obscure SSD brands on the Chinese market.

Ah yes, I’m sure electronic waste is their top concern /s

Reprocessing components for lower-tier products or new products is a regular practice in the hardware world. Companies are always looking to maximize profits.

Ok, at least we touch on the real real eventually (at the very end of the article but fine).

The big question is, how un/reliable are these drives.