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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Cheeky fake USB3 HDD....
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9077 |
This one is NOT mine - I can spot a scam, but I thought I would find out what was inside. A friend-of-a-friend sent me a new external HDD for me to copy some of my media library onto just prior to Christmas. As I am now in quarantine till Sunday with the coof, I found some time to play about with it. When plugged in, it identified itself as a HDD, but the first warning sign of something odd, was it showed up as FOUR 2TB USB HDD's. I bet many of you already know where this is going....  Drives F, G, H and J. Firstly, it is impossible to get a new USB3 HDD that is already pre-partitioned, unless someone has carved it up before it got to you, and 2nd - 4x 2TB?! So...8TB in a 2.5" external case, for what I soon found out cost the guy $50 on ebay. Ahhhh..... Making more sense now!  Besides the fact that you can't even buy a 2.5" HDD of 8TB capacity in the first place, even if you COULD.......fifty bucks?!   BTW, the largest 2.5" spinning HDD I could find new from the likes of Seagate or WD etc, was 4TB @ NZ$333 each. Link, if interested Half the capacity and roughly seven times the price - for genuine capacity, that is.  Obviously, this USB3 thing is a fake drive, and I passed that along to the friend-of-a-friend, but it is the uneducated that are the ones that get taken by these scams. Cracking it open revealed:     So, using a USB3 socket, but very much a USB2 speed arrangement inside, so is slow AND will not have anywhere near the capacity, and gawd only knows what happens to your data if written to this thing. This scam is probably actually quite lucrative, considering they are probably building it for about $10 including case, and selling it for $50 + postage per unit. Remember the old saying? "If something looks to good to be true, it probably is." Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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phil99 Guru  Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1812 |
Just idle curiosity, have you determined the actual capacity of those thumb drives? Edit Many years ago I bought a 32GB that worked at first then started scrambling files. Re-formatted and started writing to it, checking the first files after each write. It worked ok up to about 7GB then started messing things up. Probably an 8GB chip with a fake ID. Edited 2023-01-04 15:42 by phil99 |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9077 |
No, never even bothered to plug one of the four in. It will be reporting as 2TB - which again, is not possible in current USB flash-drive flavours. You CAN get 1TB flash drives for NZ$305 each.... link As your edit says, they WILL be some kind of cheap flash-drive with a fake ID to trick the computer into thinking it has much more then it really has. Would not surprise me if they were 2GB drives ID-ing as 2TB.  In any event, not something to use for anything anyway, as they are also totally unbranded. I did crack one open to have a look inside, but the build-quality was so horrible, I just swept the entire collection of bits into the bin once I had take the photos and posted the thread. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3677 |
Perhaps the only way to stop them is to claim the payment back. John |
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stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1654 |
I got one like this 2TB and it is but slow transfer on usb 2. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/295290193467 |
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| Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 386 |
Thanks for the heads up. Cheeky mongrels alright. I wonder how many people they catch with these things. Pete |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3677 |
Isn't that rather cheap? I'd run a full pattern-based test on it - and expect it to fail :( John |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9077 |
Lots, unfortunately. Many people buy those external drives as a way to move or store a large media library. Non-computer tech people who just use computers, but don't know or care about any of the technical details, are the ones bitten by these kinds of scam. These kind of fake external SSD/HDD can sell for what seems like a remarkably low price considering the capacity they advertise, but they are a complete fake. Anyone who buys one and finds that out later, usually gets nowhere with any kind of complaint, as the seller will just ignore you. Complaining to admin at eBay or AliExpress MIGHT get you somewhere, but it usually does not. The worst thing about them really, is that they are - as far as I am concerned - a data time-bomb. Writing ANYTHING to these things is at best, dubious, and at worst, an absolute disaster. Once you write past the actual capacity of the drive(and you don't know what that is), it usually results in total corruption of the data on the thing, making the existing data unrecoverable in the process. The emotional results of that kind of data loss can be devastating to the unknowing. A horrible, horrible kind of fake storage device IMHO. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Frank N. Furter Guru Joined: 28/05/2012 Location: GermanyPosts: 815 |
Hi, I can recommend H2testw(https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539). this is a free software to test data storage. I (and friends of mine) have used it to unmask many a fake USB stick! It is a simple program that writes test files to the media and reads them back. If errors occur, they are detected immediately. The only disadvantage is that it can take a long time with large media... Frank |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3677 |
I use a Linux version of that: f3 Well, usually on SD cards, but seems to work on any block device (as you'd expect). John Edited 2023-01-05 21:23 by JohnS |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1654 |
My win 10 pc's have only usb2. Should it take 70 hour? :) My rpi400 has usb3 but will the linux version work on it?  |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1654 |
Warning: Only 33772 of 1999983 MByte tested. The media is likely to be defective. 20.2 GByte OK (42493056 sectors) 12.7 GByte DATA LOST (26672000 sectors) Details:2.3 MByte overwritten (4866 sectors) 0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors) 12.7 GByte corrupted (26667134 sectors) 65 KByte aliased memory (130 sectors) First error at offset: 0x0000000510b90000 Expected: 0x0000000510b90000 Found: 0xffffffffffffffff H2testw version 1.3 Reading speed: 17.7 MByte/s H2testw v1.4 If it's too good to be true.... etc. :) |
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| Bill7300 Senior Member  Joined: 05/08/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 158 |
Not quite the same device but one here is very similar. The description under the "Portable SSD" should have been a clue. Obviously "MOBILLE SDUD STATE" looked sufficiently close to "MOBILE SOLID STATE" to that non-English speaker.  Bill |
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| stanleyella Guru Joined: 25/06/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1654 |
Ha! Ha! ... but it's not funny really :) It's bad! |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3677 |
Should work. The RPi is quite slow - not sure how fast its USB is but safe to try it & report back :) John |
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| gadgetjack Senior Member Joined: 15/07/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 127 |
I remembered getting one similar to this as a present a few months ago. Was told it was 2 terabyte. I laughed and put it on a shelf. After reading this thread , I dug it out and tested it for a laugh. Sure enough it says 2 terabyte , but fails after about 32 gig of testing with fake finder software. And very SLOW reading. Says bluetooth 3 but I dont think so.  |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 328 |
SDUD is right. Definitely a DUD! |
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