Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He\u2019s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he\u2019s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.
USAFRet This has been a thing for years. https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/buyer-beware-16tb-or-larger-external-portable-ssd-usb-drives-are-fake.3773032/ Reply
Greywulffcvg Out of curiosity, I paid $9.65 on Amazon Haul for what claimed to be a 2TB "Portable SSD External Hard Drive. The outside of the box it came in was labeled 2TB but inside the box it only claimed 64GB. Connecting it to a PC, the PC said it had 64GB. I wrote and read some data, but I'm not planning to use it for anything except some experiments. I have also seen ads for drives claiming as much as 16TB for less than $10. Reply
USAFRet Greywulffcvg said: Out of curiosity, I paid $9.65 on Amazon Haul for what claimed to be a 2TB "Portable SSD External Hard Drive. The outside of the box it came in was labeled 2TB but inside the box it only claimed 64GB. Connecting it to a PC, the PC said it had 64GB. I wrote and read some data, but I'm not planning to use it for anything except some experiments. I have also seen ads for drives claiming as much as 16TB for less than $10. All of those are fake, and do NOT have the stated capacity. I wouldn't trust it to hold a single 2k txt file. Waste of your time and money. Reply
cyrusfox Would be great if someone utilized AI to get rid of these scams though, especially on platforms like ebay and amazon. I don't see them on Mercari… I have personally bought used Li-Ion packs from ebay and scored great deal ($60 for a 13s6p 18650 pack, 40-60 mile range on my e-bike). You do need to know what you are lloking for. Its the same with car parts on ebay though, hard to find anything I would trust. Reply
Greywulffcvg USAFRet said: All of those are fake, and do NOT have the stated capacity. I wouldn't trust it to hold a single 2k txt file. Waste of your time and money. It was not a waste of time or money. I got essentially what I expected, and my testing so far indicates it is much better than your comment states (although obviously not the advertised 2TB). Reply
USAFRet Greywulffcvg said: It was not a waste of time or money. I got essentially what I expected, and my testing so far indicates it is much better than your comment states (although obviously not the advertised 2TB). Good luck. Reply
1noway128 The best part of this, at least in the US, is that shipped from China, the only remedies are to give you your money back and keep the item, or they pay to ship it back to China. Guess which they ALWAYS choose? Seems like a good source for free 60GB microSD cards. I did the same thing with rechargeable AA, C, etc batteries. You can simply weigh them to know that the (impossible) capacities are not going to be had. But the AA's work perfectly fine for weeks in TV remote controls, so there is that. Only way to win this battle IMO is to make them lose money on every deal. As was already mentioned though, the majority probably have no clue they SHOULD be testing the products they receive, and thus have no idea they aren't getting the proper product, and thus the scammers continue to make enough money to keep it profitable. Reply
bit_user I have two experiences with buying SSDs from sellers on Amazon and Ebay, possibly worth mentioning. The Amazon seller shipped Micron OEM SSDs in an anti-static bag that were folded in such a way as to make it almost impossible to determine the model of the SSD without opening. And they would not accept returns of opened drives. I got around this by shifting the drive in its bag so that the label wasn't covered by the sticker sealing the bag (which wasn't easy, because the bag was folded very tightly). Then, putting the drive in direct sunlight and holding my phone at such an angle where it wasn't blinded by the reflection. Enough light got through that I was able to clearly photograph the drive model and see that it was not the advertised model, but rather a lower-end QLC substitute (still Micron-branded and of the stated capacity). I was able to return the drive for a full refund. I packaged it more carefully than they did, which I recall was just wrapped in bubblewrap and stuffed in a paperboard envelope. The ebay seller shipped the the correct drive, but it was a 2242 "new pull" drive in an antistatic bag and thrown in a paperboard envelope, without any padding or reinforcement. It worked okay, but I was pretty annoyed at how recklessly packed it was. This was like 6 months ago, before SSD price rises had really started to filter down to the ebay prices on used or "open-box" new drives. BTW, both sellers were US-based. With the de minimis exemption gone, I wasn't about to take any chances ordering anything from China. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/external-ssds/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/external-ssds/redditor-buys-suspicious-drives-on-ebay-just-to-report-the-scamming-sellers-if-they-get-a-fake-ssd-or-hdd-latest-16tb-find-has-weights-and-microsd-card-hot-glued-inside-the-enclosure-to-make-it-feel-legit#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/subscription
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