FAKE SSD's. From China. Where else?

[RichA]

https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listings-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure

[geoff]

On 3/09/2022 5:48 pm, RichA wrote:
> https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listings-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure
>

Looks like somebody jizzed on it for good measure 8====o...

geoff

[RJH]

On 3 Sep 2022 at 06:48:29 BST, RichA wrote:

> https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listings-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure

Not a fake SSD, just a very slow solid state drive. Might be OK for archiving
if it's reliable.

I recently bought a 2TB USB thumb drive off ebay for £6 more out of curiousity
than anything. Well, it works, but took 9 hours to back up 1TB of data . . .

--
Cheers, Rob, Sheffield UK

[nospam]

In article <tev452$2r90t$1...@dont-email.me>, RJH <patch...@gmx.com>
wrote:

> > https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listing

> > s-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure
>
> Not a fake SSD, just a very slow solid state drive. Might be OK for archiving
> if it's reliable.

it's fake and not at all reliable

> I recently bought a 2TB USB thumb drive off ebay for £6 more out of curiousity
> than anything. Well, it works, but took 9 hours to back up 1TB of data . . .

likely also fake, definitely junk and probably not reliable.

[RJH]

What makes you so sure? I successfully wrote 1 TB to, and can access the data
from, the thumb drive. Which as it happens is ideal for my purposes - music
storage attached to a media server. And it's worked for the past few weeks,
since I got it.

[nospam]

In article <tevigo$2smie$1...@dont-email.me>, RJH <patch...@gmx.com>

wrote:

> >>>
> >>> https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listi
> >>> ng
> >>> s-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure
> >>
> >> Not a fake SSD, just a very slow solid state drive. Might be OK for
> >> archiving
> >> if it's reliable.
> >
> > it's fake and not at all reliable
> >
> >> I recently bought a 2TB USB thumb drive off ebay for £6 more out of
> >> curiousity
> >> than anything. Well, it works, but took 9 hours to back up 1TB of data . .
> >> .
> >
> > likely also fake, definitely junk and probably not reliable.
>
> What makes you so sure?

because they use hacked firmware to report a larger size than it
actually is.

that means when writing beyond the physical limit, old data will be
overwritten causing the directory to be invalid, thereby guaranteeing
data loss.

> I successfully wrote 1 TB to, and can access the data
> from, the thumb drive.

have you read and verified *every* file to determine it's identical to
the original?

unless you somehow remained under the physical limit, there is almost
certainly corruption.

> Which as it happens is ideal for my purposes - music
> storage attached to a media server. And it's worked for the past few weeks,
> since I got it.

that doesn't mean anything. you could lose data tomorrow, or next week,
or next month.

whatever you put on it, be sure there are other copies.

[RJH]

Ah interesting, thanks. I've not checked it - just played a random selection
of files. I will now. Although I did manage to leave it where I stayed 200
miles away. So in the fulness of time.

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-09-03 07:48, RichA wrote:
> https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listings-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure
>

<https://www.vice.com/en/article/akek8e/walmart-30tb-ssd-hard-drive-scam-sd-cards>

Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That’s Actually Two Small SD Cards in
a Trench Coat


Walmart, not China.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

[Whisky-dave]

On Saturday, 3 September 2022 at 14:29:00 UTC+1, nospam wrote:
> In article <tevigo$2smie$1...@dont-email.me>, RJH <patch...@gmx.com>
> wrote:
>
> > >>>
> > >>> https://www.dpreview.com/news/0798552385/psa-be-careful-of-weird-ssd-listi
> > >>> ng
> > >>> s-online-they-could-be-sd-cards-inside-an-enclosure
> > >>
> > >> Not a fake SSD, just a very slow solid state drive. Might be OK for
> > >> archiving
> > >> if it's reliable.
> > >
> > > it's fake and not at all reliable
> > >
> > >> I recently bought a 2TB USB thumb drive off ebay for £6 more out of
> > >> curiousity
> > >> than anything. Well, it works, but took 9 hours to back up 1TB of data . .
> > >> .
> > >
> > > likely also fake, definitely junk and probably not reliable.
> >
> > What makes you so sure?
> because they use hacked firmware to report a larger size than it
> actually is.

One of our lecturers bought a couple of iPod nanos the long thin ones from years ago
thought they were 8 or 16gb but they were flashed 2gb versions sold on ebay.

>
> that means when writing beyond the physical limit, old data will be
> overwritten causing the directory to be invalid, thereby guaranteeing
> data loss.

Yeps that's how he found out after his kids music files started getting corrupted or disapearing.

I think they were geniune Apple iPods (but hacked) but they could have been fake

[danny burstein]

[tales of faked SSDs deleted]

On the other hand, I've run into "thumb drives" which
were software limited (and sold as..) smaller units
than they really were.

Which kind of makes sense from a manufacturing/marketing
standpoint. Just have one large plant making (for
illustration) 128 gig USB sticks as opposed to keeping
more assembly lines running. Then software tweak/limit
some of them to only be 32 gig.

I saw this happen when I took some of those units
and reformatted them for my Mac. And yes, I
wrote to all that "new" area, read it back, and
cycled them a half dozen times.

Is this still being done? Can't really say as my
observations were five years ago. But it wouldn't
surprise me.


--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

[Dimitris Tzortzakakis]

Στις 5/9/2022 6:35 μ.μ., ο/η danny burstein έγραψε:
> [tales of faked SSDs deleted]
>
> On the other hand, I've run into "thumb drives" which
> were software limited (and sold as..) smaller units
> than they really were.
>
> Which kind of makes sense from a manufacturing/marketing
> standpoint. Just have one large plant making (for
> illustration) 128 gig USB sticks as opposed to keeping
> more assembly lines running. Then software tweak/limit
> some of them to only be 32 gig.
>
> I saw this happen when I took some of those units
> and reformatted them for my Mac. And yes, I
> wrote to all that "new" area, read it back, and
> cycled them a half dozen times.
>
> Is this still being done? Can't really say as my
> observations were five years ago. But it wouldn't
> surprise me.
>
>

that was also done with mechanical (traditional) hard drives, where a
supposed 1 TB drive was only 128 MB, with a small thumb drive inside,
the interface (tweaked so it would show as 1TB instead) and a couple of
washers and bolts to give it weight. Also back in the film days there
were counterfeit "Nikon" cameras with only a crappy meniscus plastic
lens, my late uncle had fallen into buying one, they weren't worth
loading them with film. there are even now "4K" cameras with only a
crappy camera phone sensor....

[Paul Carmichael]

El Mon, 05 Sep 2022 15:35:58 +0000, danny burstein escribió:

> [tales of faked SSDs deleted]
>
> On the other hand, I've run into "thumb drives" which were software
> limited (and sold as..) smaller units than they really were.
>
> Which kind of makes sense from a manufacturing/marketing standpoint.
> Just have one large plant making (for illustration) 128 gig USB sticks
> as opposed to keeping more assembly lines running. Then software
> tweak/limit some of them to only be 32 gig.
>
> I saw this happen when I took some of those units and reformatted them
> for my Mac. And yes, I wrote to all that "new" area, read it back, and
> cycled them a half dozen times.
>
> Is this still being done? Can't really say as my observations were five
> years ago. But it wouldn't surprise me.

Brings to mind Intel's 486SX. Marketing brilliance.


--
Paul.

https://paulc.es/elpatio

[RichA]

You want to spend any money on garbage, your business. I've also noted in feedback to sellers the buyers who spend peanuts for stuff (under $10) are usually the biggest whiners when it came to
not receiving their items or the items inexplicably displaying poor quality for no money. What must it be like living SO low on the totem pole?