BEWARE FAKE SSDs on AMAZON

BrianInEngland · Dec 24, 2022

A search for 'external SSD' reveals a list of drives, in amongst the regulars (Samsung, WD, Crucial) are a LOT of obviously fake/rubbish/possibly malware-infected no-name drives. They even look like Samsung T5 drives. 11TB drive for £75? Don't think so!

I tried submitting a review saying these were fake drives, but Amazon wouldn't allow my review. Some of these are even sponsored links. Amazon have no shame in allowing these to be sold

Amazon.co.uk : external ssd

clam1952 · Dec 24, 2022

BrianInEngland said:
A search for 'external SSD' reveals a list of drives, in amongst the regulars (Samsung, WD, Crucial) are a LOT of obviously fake/rubbish/possibly malware-infected no-name drives. They even look like Samsung T5 drives. 11TB drive for £75? Don't think so!

I tried submitting a review saying these were fake drives, but Amazon wouldn't allow my review. Some of these are even sponsored links. Amazon have no shame in allowing these to be sold

Amazon.co.uk : external ssd

They unfortunately only accept Reviews from confirmed purchases.
Most of those impossibly cheap supposedly high capacity drives are cheap / junk low capacity ones with the firmware hacked to indicate a higher capacity, all seems OK until you find out the drive won't actually take more than a few GB and is mysteriously full up!

BrianInEngland · Dec 24, 2022

clam1952 said:
They unfortunately only accept Reviews from confirmed purchases.
Most of those impossibly cheap supposedly high capacity drives are cheap / junk low capacity ones with the firmware hacked to indicate a higher capacity, all seems OK until you find out the drive won't actually take more than a few GB and is mysteriously full up!

I've tweeted Amazon UK, and mentioned Samsung in the tweet. Hopefully they'll take action against these fake products and stop people being ripped off. There are literally dozens with different names but all look very similar to Samsung drives. People see 'cheap' and think they're getting a bargain

WAI · Dec 24, 2022

11TB? Lol what? That number doesn't exist as far as capacity in Flash

BrianInEngland · Dec 24, 2022

WAI said:
11TB? Lol what? That number doesn't exist as far as capacity in Flash

Exactly, and Amazon are selling these drives as 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and other variations, none of them are genuine but Amazon don't seem to care.

WAI · Dec 24, 2022

That's where people think they getting good deals when come to realize they got somewhat scammed

OldMainframeGuy · Dec 24, 2022

I bought something similar to this via ghacks.net; a 2TB USB3 external SSD. I figured for $40USD how could I go wrong? It's a complete piece of garbage but it got glowing reviews on ghacks's site. You really do get what you pay for.

DigitalGoat · Dec 24, 2022

This has been an issue with drives of all sorts for many many years now, it has gotten a lot worse as the number of online retailers hosting 3rd party sellers has exploded and SSDs have become cheaper to make.
The more concerning part about these drives is that some have the firmware modified in such a way that they do not become full with a few GB transfered but instead delete the oldest writes in place of newer writes in a cyclic fashion, so to all intents and purposes it looks like you have just copied across several hundred GBs and only realise you haven't when you most need those files.
This method is more insidious as people think they have thier data safe probably long past the refund window for the modified drives as well.

WAI · Dec 24, 2022

OldMainframeGuy said:
I bought something similar to this via ghacks.net; a 2TB USB3 external SSD. I figured for $40USD how could I go wrong? It's a complete piece of garbage but it got glowing reviews on ghacks's site. You really do get what you pay for.

Like buying those off Wish LoL

Anibor_11 · Dec 24, 2022

BrianInEngland said:
A search for 'external SSD' reveals a list of drives, in amongst the regulars (Samsung, WD, Crucial) are a LOT of obviously fake/rubbish/possibly malware-infected no-name drives. They even look like Samsung T5 drives. 11TB drive for £75? Don't think so!

I tried submitting a review saying these were fake drives, but Amazon wouldn't allow my review. Some of these are even sponsored links. Amazon have no shame in allowing these to be sold

Amazon.co.uk : external ssd

In pages 1 and 2 of this link, I don´t see these drives (I´m not in the UK).

Winuser · Dec 24, 2022

Even their description is messed up. First, they call it a Portable External Hard Drive. Then they call it a Mobile SSD. That has me wondering if they even know what it is.

Winuser · Dec 24, 2022

I was just wondering, if someone opened up the case what would they find. It wouldn't surprise me if it had a cheap USB flash drive connected inside.

clam1952 · Dec 24, 2022

Winuser said:
I was just wondering, if someone opened up the case what would they find. It wouldn't surprise me if it had a cheap USB flash drive connected inside.

Been a few videos on these scam drives, firmware manipulation, using flash drives in the case and such.

clam1952 · Dec 24, 2022

Anibor_11 said:
In pages 1 and 2 of this link, I don´t see these drives (I´m not in the UK).

Copy of one of the descriptions. Sponsored as well.

Sponsored

External Hard Drive,10TB Portable Hard Drive Mobile SSD,Solid State Drive Slim Storage Drive with USB 3.0 C Port for PC, Laptop and Mac
1.0 out of 5 stars 1

£86.99
FREE delivery by Tuesday, Dec 27
Only 4 left in stock.

Review

1.0 out of 5 stars These are not 10Tb drives and I have returned both for a refund
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 December 2022
Verified Purchase
This is a SCAM. Check the Internet and you will soon find that NO manufacturer makes portable SSD drives above 2Tb but there are several Chinese fake devices of 5, 10 and higher

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Scott · Dec 24, 2022

I made my own with one of these.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P4K28W8?th=1

WAI · Dec 24, 2022

Scott said:
I made my own with one of these.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08P4K28W8?th=1

A 4tb 2.5 HDD is $90

barman58 · Dec 24, 2022

I've been exclusively using NVMe drives for system and fast access, for some time now.

I always purchase the drive and the case separately, thus ensuring that I get exactly what I need for the job in hand, Cost wise if I exclude the cost of my own time the cost is similar to the potentially "dodgy" cheap items, if not less. The actual hardware, is of course exactly what was specified for the job.

MisterEd · Dec 24, 2022

Winuser said:
I was just wondering, if someone opened up the case what would they find. It wouldn't surprise me if it had a cheap USB flash drive connected inside.

You get what you pay for because external SSDs from repetable manufacturers sell for about 100 USD per TB. Sometimes a little less when on sale.

You used to have to go to places like Wish to find them but now they are all over Amazon. Here is a review of an 8TB one someone bought on Wish.
Advertised: 8TB
Windows showed: 4 x 2TB
Actual: 128GB = 4 x 32GB
Don't be fooled into thinking that you would at least have 128GB of storage because:
1. The 4 flash drives were plugged into a slow internal USB hub
2. Windows would think the capacity was 2TB and keep on writing after it passed the real 32GB end.
3. The 4 flash drives were maybe USB 1 or 2. In any case they were really slow.

iWish: I bought an 8TB External Drive from Wish...and it went as well as you would expect

Here is a screenshot from the review where you got to see what was inside.

pparks1 · Dec 24, 2022

Yeah, here is hoping that members here are smart enough to realize when something is not a deal.

WAI · Dec 24, 2022

MisterEd said:
You get what you pay for because external SSDs from repetable manufacturers sell for about 100 USD per TB. Sometimes a little less when on sale.

You used to have to go to places like Wish to find them but now they are all over Amazon. Here is a review of an 8TB one someone bought on Wish.
Advertised: 8TB
Windows showed: 4 x 2TB
Actual: 128GB = 4 x 32GB
Don't be fooled into thinking that you would at least have 128GB of storage because:
1. The 4 flash drives were plugged into a slow internal USB hub
2. Windows would think the capacity was 2TB and keep on writing after it passed the real 32GB end.
3. The 4 flash drives were maybe USB 1 or 2. In any case they were really slow.

iWish: I bought an 8TB External Drive from Wish...and it went as well as you would expect

Here is a screenshot from the review where you got to see what was inside.

View attachment 48340

OMFG wow that's like that time Linus from YouTube bought those SD Cards adapter thing plugging in multiple SD cards is a No No to just achieve better read/writes? He did not know better. Clearly I was like "Linus really..."