I Got Scammed - Fake 4TB Samsung SSD from AliExpress

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

I would love to see a follow up video on how Ali Express deals with your complaint, what actions they take against the scammers, etc.

[@Ricek73]

They won't do anything to the scammer, at most they will grant him a return and a refund, but the scammer will still sell on the portal.

[@estusflask982]

@@The_Noticer. We do care. Ali should remove the sellers for good.

[@sharpless]

I would assume that AliExpress would give the seller a bonus payout.

[@Ricek73]

@@The_Noticer. 這就是騙子

[@OGruurd]

They are the scammers. Come on people, dont be so incredibly naïve. Also, CCP has 50% of ALL cameras on the WHOLE planet. JUST TO SPY ON THEIR OWN PEOPLE. I have never seen a flag this red, well maybe Mao, but thats where they are going again. And if you are still not sure, read some about Tiananmen Square or Xinjiang. People of China keep strong.

[@TheZoenGaming]

The thing I hate about these scams isn't that people fall for them, it's the resources wasted to make these scam products. From the metal and plastics used in the casing and electronics to the energy used in manufacturing.

[@sephondranzer]

Honestly couldn’t help but notice what a shame it was too - the amount of effort put into making that look like the real deal is sad.

[@ChBhanuPrakashBCS]

A lot of people fall for these scams. These products are made fake so obviously that anyone with even a little knowledge will know that this is fake and won't buy it. But to these scamsters it's just a way of filtering out the smart people and the left over are the most innocent, unsuspecting victims. That whom they prey on unfortunately. Its the same with all those email scams of Nigerian prince, customs tax etc etc

[@MasterThief117]

You're allowed to hate both.

[@aonoloki]

E-waste out of the factory

[@Live1509]

The dummies that buy them are guilty, that's what happen when you won't understand that there are limits to price lowering. Remember the first rule of market: if there is request there will be offer.

[@Gr1mm4]

It's kind of funny that they haven't changed the way they do this type of scam for 10+ years...

[@snakeplissken8887]

Because counterfeits are their way of draining their opponents. If they can flood every market with counterfeit or low quality products at a markup price, they have effectively cornered and outmaneuvered the other guys market. They have every market segment flooded. Ebay, Amazon, WalMart, and so on. They can flood legitimate markets with bad quality stuff, they can replace easily for a mere fraction of the cost.

[@mjc0961]

Why change if it keeps working? They keep doing it because people keep falling for it.

[@DanielKarnole-fs3hm]

For real. I remember fake 64-128GB USB sticks from 2012

[@andreasu.3546]

@@mjc0961 Yeah, never touch a running system.

[@andreasu.3546]

@@DanielKarnole-fs3hm I just bough a Kingston and a Sandisk 128 GByte USB stick from Amazon and was honestly surprised to find out they actually work as expected.

[@AbrahamCollins1786]

You're a good person, Roman, and that's why any of us watch your content. Never quit.

[@mroutcast8515]

AliExpress scams always make for great entertaining video. Would love to see more AliExpress scam videos in the future - or other oddities you typically don't see on everyday PC market

[@mitch_the_-itch]

How about we stop giving money to Communists? Its not going to be nearly so funny when youre being sent to an oven by the Commie/Fascists.

[@realryder2626]

The genuine products themselves are actually stolen IP.. Samsung has been stealing 'NETLIST's IP and manufacturing chips illegally. They have also teamed up with google (colluding to bankrupt netlist in order to obtain netlists patent portfolio due to a clause in the JDLA, but theyare trying to 1. Reinterpret the contract, and 2. Telling the judges to redefine law and language) to cause maximum financial, and material damage... so far, samsung is getting off lightly, they are on the hook for 303m, but have stolen billions, and even stopped Netlist supplying their own chips to their own clients, intentionally caused them tax problems and more.. Samsung are top-tier scammers

[@rhuephus]

you'd be spending 1,000 hours a day 1,000,000 days a year watching them. Obviously you don't have a life

[@Anticorriente]

At this rate we will need an open source ssd card for avoid this scams.

[@kuoasify]

im not dumb enough to buy dumb things from them but did have good luck with there 11P 11pin USB Data Extension Cord 1 Female to 2 Male Y Splitter Cable after i needed it for controlling my RGB fans with but so far no issues after i had modified it into a 10 pin one which wasn't hard to do after i couldn't get one from Corsair

[@LoveBbyJay]

P.S. The 10TB+ USB SSD scam is sold everywhere from Amazon to Ebay to Walmart, it's farfrom an AliExpress issue

[@joesterling4299]

Sold by whom, on Amazon? Never buy tech items from third-party sellers. Even if they're trying to be honest, they're not savvy enough to prevent getting scammed themselves in their inventories.

[@kakhak]

Moreover, scammers who somehow operate from. Amazon, all are Chinese, Pakistani or India people.

[@xXVibrantSnowXx]

@@joesterling4299 Yes but also no, Third party seller being a scammer is not always the case, you have to take a look at seller feedback reviews, and how long they've been on the site, & lot of them are actually genuine, i've bought lot from 3rd party sellers with no problems at all, if the seller only newly joined then this could be a red flag

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

I love videos like this, I've seen those drives before and wondered what's inside. No idea why they try to go so ridiculously fake capacities, surely they would con more people saying like 2TB for €40, not 64TB! I would love to see a follow up video on how Ali Express deals with your complaint, what actions they take against the scammers, etc.

[@vocassen]

The thing is, they don't want normal people to fall for it, or it gets too much attention. Better have a few people fall for it that can not for one reason or another discern the scam within time for a refund, which includes people that simply do not have the time to lookup normal prices, reviews, or verify a drives full capacity, and are a bit naive/dumb

[@issacehowardjr679]

Those scammers in some cases spend more money to make even more money than it's actually worth in the end. No worries... I almost confused myself there on that statement. lol

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

@@vocassen quite possibly, I'm also surprised Ali Express doesn't have an automatic product description to price checker, this would clean it's site up of things like this and people would have a little more faith in ordering from them.

[@vocassen]

@@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt Why? They profit from this And it won't be reliable anyway, right now at least normal people will delude themselves that they would never fall for a scam, and the allure of cheap products will keep some types of people coming anyway

[@Speak_Out_and_Remove_All_Doubt]

@@vocassen but that's like saying why do any shops ever sell anything that's real? I would fully expecting the total revenue Ali Express generates to increase significantly in the long run if the world fully trusted Ali Express listings and sellers.

[@BrainSlugs83]

You should be using the fake flash test program, it has a quick test mode that doesn't need to write the whole drive. It writes a small file every 1 MB or so apart, instead of filling up every single sector. It is pretty reliable at quickly testing these kinds of drives, even at slow speeds.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

connect with computers well glad that is what it connects to🤣🤣🤣

[@lavenderlilacproductions]

I learned of that software after getting a "deal" on a USB Stick advertised at 256 GB that overwrote every 32 GB.

[@LostOnTheLine]

@@lavenderlilacproductions my experience as well. It will say the drive is good even when it is not 2/3 of the time

[@cameramaker]

The firmware VA001CBN reveals a bunch of similar drives with about 128GB capacity, but the flash chip markings (lol, the random mixed ones on the "pro") are not Intel nor Micron (the main problem is the missing capacity after 29F). But if you unsolder these and put them into a nand programmer, it should read out the ID of the chip - to tell what it actually is inside. Ask around at some data recovery companies if they could ID the chip with their tools electronically.

[@fleurdewin7958]

The flash chip logo looks exactly like IMFT (Intel) ones. I own an Intel 760P SSD and the flash all have that logo on them. Micron logo has an "M" inside the circle. The SSD controller silver colour top looks like a typical one from SMI .

[@cameramaker]

@@fleurdewin7958 yes I noticed that too.. the typical intel double arrow oval. But if they made up the part number.. they could just forge the logo as well.

[@katherinesilens2994]

calling in the nuclear option with supply chain identification lmao

[@gmscott9319]

I never thought I'd hear the words "Scammed" and "AliExpress" togehter in the same sentence! lol j/k That's about all I expect. Thanks for the video!

[@silentleges7988]

You're much more brave than me lol. I wouldn't even plug these into my PC. Who knows what kind of ransonware comes on some of these 😂

[@marcogenovesi8570]

the test benches are disposable anyway

[@sephondranzer]

He probably only used it in test environments. Guy’s too smart to plug that into his personal PC.

[@silentleges7988]

I wouldn't plug it into anything of mine 😂 even if I had tons of extra PCs. All that stuff costs money and rolling the dice like that just isn't worth it to me I guess. I suppose just for the sake of making a video about what not to do I would plug it into an old/low end rig I didn't care about. Or plug it into like an isolated virtual machine of some kind if I knew how to do that lol.

[@alispeed5095]

I expect he is using a test rig or something.

[@joetuktyyuktuk8635]

My thoughts too, who knows what kind of software is hiding on these, especially the one that insists on internet connection, Keylogger, ransom ware... the only good thing is it might take awhile to steal your passwords.... 🤣

[@CreatingNull]

It's actually quite common to see the removal of IC markings on components that are purchased from the grey-market, rather than them being removed by the OEM/scammer themself. This is often just to remove date/batch codes so that they can't be easily traced back to a supplier.

one thing ive learned long time ago, is never buy storage in ali

[@Zysperro]

Just don't buy SSDs with 0 reviews and that's all. Looks like the moderator here really hates Ali since he's deleting every comment that is remotely positive or neutral towards it...

[@theMaster...]

​@@ZysperroDon't be a Simp for Communists. Not a good look...

[@mohdrai-og4kh]

​​@@theMaster...I'm not a simp for anyone I just follow things that benefit me, the first reply said something right, if you buy something without any reviews regardless of the shitty website you're buying from, you will likely get played. It's been years for me buying from AliExpress because it's cheaper than Amazon and my country's stores. However, I am cautions whenever I buy from there.

[@Zysperro]

@@theMaster... LMAO, are you American or smthn, bringing politics everywhere. I give credit when it's due, Ali provides good service and fair prices, especially for those outside of 1st world countries.

[@JonesysMomma]

I have literally never had a problem buying anything off AliExpress but storage, which I got around by buying directly from the Samsung store, which I also have to do on Amazon. Besides the 3 storage products I didn't receive one product I've bought and I got a refund no questions asked. I also get to ask about warehouse conditions if I want, which is why I started shopping there, hair extensions.

[@caralynx]

Note for the external drives with microSD cards, these days they use a controller that reads some config off the beginning of the card (hence why you were prompted to format, because it's the config and not the MBR at the start) to set the capacity and USB identifiers. If you put in a card without that config, it works like a normal SD card reader. The controller is off the shelf, the only trick is they can be configured by the card. The microSD card tends to be real capacity (when you use it in a regular reader), just low quality.

[@emptycl0ud9]

I bought an external HDD also, and found that it had weights inside even. Crazy lengths they go to sell these

[@delresearch5416]

some ssds are so light hey need weights

[@Physics072]

Why would you buy from them? Do you buy TVs out the back of a van in a dark alley too? You pay for junk you get junk wake up.

[@valhallasashes4354]

Not only does a 980 Evo not exist. As far as I'm aware (I was looking for one a few weeks ago), Samsung doesn't even make 4TB NVME drives. The highest they go is 2TB. Western Digital makes 4TB NVME drives, but not Samsung. The only "4TB EVO" drives Samsung currently makes are 2.5 inch SATA drives.

[@AntonChekhoff]

I don't see Samsung on the packaging. People, who buy these products, need to be more attentive. Did the seller claim it was a Samsung product?

[@kgonepostl]

AliExpress = Chinese scammer heaven.

[@C4H6As]

When choosing carefully and using your brain this can be heaven for you as buyer too!

[@bulufish8208]

I'm amazed that you plugged that crop into your computer 🖥.

[@jonbarnard7186]

Great video. I also avoid "retail partner" sales on Amazon, Bestbuy etc. If it doesn't say "sold by Amazon", I'm suspicious. In the case of Bestbuy, I always avoid things designated "marketplace seller." There may be times when you can afford to take a chance, but be prepared to have to deal with a counterfeit. When it comes to usb devices, ssd drives, that sort of thing, I avoid them completely. It's also a good idea to have testing programs, such as the ones you used.

[@joesterling4299]

That's it. Amazon should be held liable for anything fake they allow getting sold on their storefront by third parties. But they're not, so they're lax in policing such scams. It may be best just to go directly to the source of what you want--Samsung, e.g. Or a physical reputable store, like Microcenter. (We're regressing back to brick and mortar?)

[@davenz000]

I can't believe any "techies" fall for this. But today "techie" means someone who can turn on an iPhone.....

[@InternetEntity]

Ah good, another episode of 'Engineer debunks stuff on Aliexpress'. Please, continue.

[@InternetListener]

Not so engineer if he went to buy, import, avoid paying taxes, duties or custom clearance of a restricted product you can simply go and buy at any European shop with proper taxes, warranty and customer protection. Just a xenophobic video genre. What do you expect to find in an international Bazar? Aliexpress is good for cheap original Made in China or compatible (licensed or not) electronics, etc. Or to find very expensive western gimmick at very eastern cheap debunked tech. $5 Magic Brand Eraser sponge or 5 usd set of 10 sponges of melamine foam? Or ceramic magic coating for 100usd for 100 drops or a gallon of hydrophobic silica solution to spray? Or strange cable adaptors, electrònic misvelania, etc.

[@wvjeepguy8178]

Xenophobic? Lol....ok..

[@tokajst]

and it's not even debunking, he just bought from a scam vendor like a dumb person would do lol literally just read the reviews

[@riphunter5100]

​@@InternetListener Dude he is just buying computer hardware so what restricted products are you talking about?? and the corrupted bureaucrats ain't gonna use the tax money for any good for society so better not to give them any.

[@InternetListener]

@@wvjeepguy8178 too strong of a word in English, maybe. I'm sorry but didn't find any better suited synonim to the ethimological meaning. And didn't want to write a philosophical essay tech media youtube content neither do a Wall of Text. Fear to strange/foreigner things, I meant. Sometimes one gets lost in translation...

[@reaper15a]

A really close friend of mine and fellow IT worker got scammed on Newegg for a 2.5" Samsung SSD, after contacting Samsung and sending them pictures of the drive and the PCB they told him it was a fake, and they contacted Newegg to have them refund him.

[@jfdomega7938]

Excellent video, I like how you go into depth and try to figure out these scams and what they use, Well done! You earned a subscriber.

[@joopie46614]

exFat is actually quite common for an SSD / external device. NTFS can be inefficient / not supported by other systems.

[@jimshannononsounds]

My recent Samsung 970 Evo plus 2Tb m.2 ssd using Samsung's in house cloning software by default sets the cloning process as NTFS. Pardon the clunky writing. Still waking up. LOL

[@ssearts]

Thanks for the video!..Fake products is also becoming a real problem today

[@ericcartman9935]

hahahaha , just love your cat's indifference, LOOOL (you do what you have to do, I will just mind my own business here, IN YOUR FACE!)

[@edgarcornette6387]

I still dont understand why some people buy these things thinking they are going to get a good deal. You just cant get something for nothing. These scammers steal peoples hard earned money.. Thank You for showing this. Love your videos.

[@crytocc]

Because people who aren't doing tech stuff on a constant basis will have no idea what a reasonable price is for this sort of thing, especially with the "tech constant gets cheaper" thing - and on the surface, there's no obvious difference between the misleading marketing that tech companies have been doing for decades, and the misleading marketing that these sellers are doing.

[@lenaisx]

Not all money is hard earned, many earn easily.😂🤑

[@midniteoyl8913]

'Everybody knows that China makes things for pennies on the dollar and if you just buy direct, cutting out the greedy middle man, you can save hundreds..'

[@llothar68]

Talking with some Filipino and Thai tech sellers, it's really so bad that a mistake of 64GB vs 64TB is possible. They just don't know anything and don't care about precise specs. There is a absolute no money back gurantee even on fraud cases in this countries.

[@Chris_Cable]

But then you couldn't make click bait youtube videos :)

[@KRAVER_]

Thank You Roman for showing others how this SCAM is done. I tell a lot of people but im unknown lol

[@Yogi_Bear69]

As someone who has bought sketchy MicroSD cards off Wish before I'm very familiar with H2testw and how LONG it can take. I appreciate your time making this video.

[@Vysair]

the test would be faster on a real ssd

[@tudomerda]

Moral of the story, do not buy expensive items from Ali Express

[@Kyanzes]

To get full speed with these drives you need to plug in a USB mounted SC/AM adapter, it opens up the limitation. Only now for $50.

[@yoshy2628]

@@AnimationByDylan You have to buy more external hard drives from Ali, the SC/AM adapter is included.

[@vkiwi2429]

sheik is very patient with you.. ruining their rest with scammy boxes on his feet

[@Alex-qq1gm]

It's nice of them to hot glue the SD card in, that's more care than some OEMs of non scam hardware give.

[@h8GW]

I appreciate the amount of air they give me inside the case. All the "legit" companies try to pad out my air with PCBs and ICs and use things like "solder" to try to stick things together...😔

[@kulilin3104]

I love how Roman could barely get through the intro without almost laughing.

[@aonoloki]

It's good to spread awareness about it As a trained eye I instantly recognise these cases, there's dozens of them with different branding

[@SpecialistBR]

More importantly, never plug any USB device on your computer that is not from a trusted source. There are malwares that can infect your computer by just pluggin it in.

[@nickmalone3143]

I use a linux machine to wipe the drive and blast the partition table...i sometimes buy refurb drives

[@papahuge]

10:23 omg that is the funniest sh1111t ever!!! 😂😂😂😂😂😂👏

[@vusun123]

There are multiple variants of those fake 980/990 Pros. If you deal with the retail versions of those SSDs long enough, you can immediately spot the fake ones right from the packaging. I believe there are even fake 870 Evo as well (seen the packaging, the text is way off from the real ones).

[@KokoroKatsura]

a n i m e n i m e

[@OGruurd]

Yeah I have a 980 and a 980 Pro, and I immediately thought; what a weird font for the text.

[@minbcraft]

@@OGruurdThe font screams cheap chinese product to me lol

[@OGruurd]

@@minbcraft What do you reckon? Chinese entities + tampering with tech = some kind of spying? is what my gut says. Inbefore they start replacing DRAM and Cache, with mini cameras & mics. I hope I have my tin foil hat on lol.

[@rhuephus]

Yeah ... especially the ones labeled as "Pors" or "Psor"

[@youkofoxy]

I have a rule: Never buy storage form aliexpress. That said, I also do not fully trust they products with microcontrollers or power supplies.

[@Bungwirez]

apologies. only just now, after all these years, subbed.

[@CoolJosh3k]

There are plenty of people out there who are clueless when it comes to this. They won’t know what TB means or what makes the legit products so much more expensive. Imagine an old man who has been a carpenter all his life. To him, a hammer is a hammer and dealing with all the technical stuff is way too complicated.

[@dariooipad6430]

Unfortunately, as usual, the Chinese cheats. Nothing changes... Let's just stop dealing with these scammers.

[@ahayesm]

I think for those M.2 drives they took some generic drive and reprogrammed the controller so that the speed would approach 0 as the drive reached its real capacity.

[@chengcao418]

If a real SSD has the controller forced to a size larger than it actually has it will probably just drop speed to zero because it can't find any more empty block. Also with less capacity left the drive drops speed naturally, it's just how SSDs work

[@Iam_Dunn]

This happened to me a few years ago. I bought a 2TB external drive, turned out to be 80GB drive. AliExpress returned my money immediately without having to return the drive AND the store disappeared a few days later. :) EDIT: Also, two weeks ago I was trying to buy a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB. I tried ScAmazon, BestBuy Canada, and Staples, all of them wanted around $200 plus $150 for shipping ( ! ! ! ) Yes, I live in a remote area, but checking shipping rates it only costs $12 to mail me the parcel. So, I reluctantly looked to AE for one. Found a 980Pro for $203 CAN$ with free shipping. I made sure that the company had at least 1000 sales and a rating of 95% or higher positive feedback. Got my drive 3 days ago and everything is 100% legit, and registered with Samsung for warranty purposes. :)

[@anuvette]

150$ shipping 😭 that is outrageous

[@TheRawChuck]

This worries me because some people aren't educated enough to know that these are too good to be true.

[@Gmon750]

These SSD scams were so prevalent in Facebook ads. As quickly as they showed up, they were taken down. It's shameful how much effort these scammers go through to rob people when they could go to making actual contributions instead.

[@davidrobertson1980]

Friend of mine was taken for a ride on "used almost new laptops" for $70 with good specs, and an new electric bike for a stupid price (price of a battery pack), they use average looking white folks standing alongside the boxes "in the warehouse:" so these might well be local scammers - fakecrook doesn't shut down the fake ads either, greedy thieves both of them!

[@burtpanzer]

Buying anything from AliExpress is just asking to be robbed.

[@NoshLambeaux]

Thanks der8auer for another great video! I really appreciate all you have taught me here on this channel.

[@ismailfaruqi9570]

14:08 bro that paws....so adorable

[@rohitsaraiya5431]

Great video, thanks for looking into it and helping out the community!

[@Antagon666]

When I come to think about it, anything I ever bought on AliExpress was either fake, or not matching the description/photos.

[@NZHippie]

Nice to see OEM surplus boxes being put to 'good' use... The same sort of scams occurred shortly after USB storage drives (pen drives) hit the market... very common in China...

[@The_Slavstralian]

I think GN exposed the way they create custom firmware for the ssd to make it lie to your PC. And it just overwrites existing files over and over

[@estusflask982]

Be wary of buying SD cards from Amazon. Even ones sold by Amazon are fake.

[@verbose2615]

Amazon is fake

[@tralfazy]

That's not my experience (so far). Also, if I were to get something fake from Amazon they would take it back and refund as soon as UPS picks it up and logs it in, not tell me that I can have a refund if I ship it back to China at a cost that's 100 times more than the product is worth.

[@snakeplissken8887]

Only if you buy from 3rd party. If you buy with Prime you will get legitimate products shipped from the manufacturer to Amazon. 3rd party and second-hand / warehouse deals do not count.

[@_--_--_]

@@tralfazy Very hard to tell a good fake. Visually they are almost perfect now, even the packaging. A good fake will also have performance that is atleast barely in the ball park. The problem btw is not that Amazon willingly sells fakes, the problem is that (some) Amazon 3rd party vendors are scammers and sell fakes with shipping with Amazon *and* Amazon will then combine the inventory of all vendors that sell a product and their own inventory, so if you order SD card x with seller Amazon you might actually get the Sd card from seller ScamMaster3000 and the other way around someone that orders from ScamMaster3000 with Amazon Shipping might get the genuine Amazon stock.

[@pineappleroad]

⁠@@snakeplissken8887 I have heard of cases where even Amazons supply chain has become contaminated with fakes (from what i know it tends to only be specialist stores that get their products directly from the manufacturer, there are companies which form the link between retail stores/online stores and the manufacturer) It could even be the case that amazon doesn’t keep the stocks of different sellers separate (so you could buy a product and receive a product that was sent to amazons warehouse by a different seller) Even well known physical stores have ended up with fake products on the shelves

[@MildManNerd]

AliExpress is such a crapshoot, yet people just keep spending money on the off chance 🤣

[@ojhuk]

The moment i saw the transfer speed of the 64TB drive i got the feeling it was just an enclosure with a small flash card inside. I've never used AliExpress and likely never will, I tend to go to established tech retailers even if it means paying a small premium for peace of mind.

[@vocassen]

Yeah really no reason to use it unless you have very specific needs for electronic components. Consumer products? Better stay away

[@guycxz]

@@vocassen It mostly depends on where you live. Where I'm from Amazon is both more expensive and slower, so I'd more often get things from Ali. I got replacement cushions for my HD6XX, a Wok, Noctua NF-A9 fans, Phantex T30 fans, a torque wrench, IEMs(Tin T2 and Moondrop Starfield), CPUs(Haswell and Skylake), a whole bunch of dev boards and electronic components, and a bunch of other stuff I don't even remember. Never got scammed. Not even once. And whenever something didn't arrive or couldn't be sent either the seller or Ali would issue a refund. I'm not saying it's perfectly safe or as good as Amazon in terms of customer service and protection, but in the utter majority of cases you're going to get what you paid for.

[@JustSomeDinosaurPerson]

Just use it for anything non tech related.

[@snakeplissken8887]

@@guycxz Those CPUs they sold you are likely ES or QS and not production qualified / ready.

[@snakeplissken8887]

They aren't allowed to sell production ready CPUs that aren't crippled in their market. We have very strict control over what they are allowed to keep and sell.

[@shatteredblade89]

For the external usb drives, one would just have to flash/hack the ssd/SD card controller to show a false number. It's similar to gpu flashing where for example a Nvidia GTS 450 shows up as a RTX 2060.

[@ampac]

It is more elaborate than that. The scam chip produces a false advertisement. But it also intercepts the read/write operations so that there are no errors when there is an operation over the real capacity of the device. These devices usually allow you to write any amount of data to the device because they overwrite the storage when the capacity is reached. So, you never get a write error despite the data loss. And this is what makes this scam dangerous: casual users that trust amazon and other major retailers, will write data on these devices and never get a write error. Only later will they find that older data is either corrupted or simply gone.

[@NobbsAndVagene]

The funny thing is that I actually bought a 64GB MicroSDXC card from AliExpress for my Nintendo Switch. Price was around what you'd expect, and the performance was also as advertised (around 10x the speed of the product Roman actually received, lmao). It wasn't a deal that sounded too good to be true though. 😅

[@JonesysMomma]

I'm amazed. The only storage I've bought from them that worked was from the official Samsung store 😭

[@Deses]

Aliexpress is not a scam per se, and you can get plenty of good quality stuff in there, you just have to buy from you reputable brands and stay away from "too good to be true" deals.

[@sty723]

Who needs a 4TB ssd? All that memory isn’t even halfway necessary.

[@andreasu.3546]

On Aliexpress you don't get scammed, you get what you deserve.

[@ThomasWinders]

There are lots of such things... like "LENOVO 2 TB flash drives", that are actually 512 Mb units... that actually quit working after you check them somehow.

[@simons9167]

You have to be careful when plug those fake disk. They usually come with malware hidden within the hard drive partition or within the chip itself.

[@RobertFromEarth]

How do yo know? ;-)

[@lexgso5141]

I like this kind of work (investigative) good job.

[@jokeassasin7733]

If you hadn’t been scammed by AliExpress would’ve been newsworthy.

[@blockofdynamite]

I have a bunch of "1TB" "blue" 2.5" SSDs that I got from someone out of curiosity. They're all 128GB SSDs (about half have 2 nand chips, about half have 4 nand chips), and the controller is some Realtek thing with the info etched off. There is a Realtek SSD/NAND tool floating around somewhere that will tell you the NAND info, and that's how I figured it out. If there were a way to reprogram this controller to reflect the flash's actual size, at least then the SSDs would be usable in some capacity. But as it stands, you just can't risk using them.

[@HanSolo__]

I can put my SanDisc USB 512GB on my pinky finger and it still looks small in comparison. I paid maybe 25 euro(?)

[@bruceplenderleith838]

The "980"the packaging itself is obfuscating, they're hoping customs don't read small print but they know the customers will

[@IvnSoft]

I'll never understand why not just sell those SDcard adapters with their real capacity and speeds advertised. They could still get triple what they invested and most people wouldnt even care if it is slow. It is just pure greed.

[@DrMuFFinMan]

If they ripped off technology to make something that at least performed or did the same thing for cheaper it would be one thing. But the fact they sale this e-waste that serves literally no purpose is the saddest thing.

[@V3ntilator]

I would never buy any storage on AliExpress. I only buy famous brands from proper stores and always did. I have known about these fake SSD drives for years.

[@smashshoot1389]

The rule is: "If a product in Ali has less than 5 perfect stars, then it is probably a scam." I got scammed in the same way with an ssd in Aliexpress and lost important files. Everytime they sell these products they have 4 stars and half or less. 90% of people buy the scam and don't complain, probably because they just didn't realize. Only a 10% of people or less complain and if lucky get a refund. From now on, I will always check the 1 star reviews, even if it was only one soul complaining.

[@kernel_inpage_error]

What they do is make the internal controller report the advertised capacity, while the shitty small module inside will have a capacity of 1/100 or, as in this case, even 1/1000. As you write anything to the disk, any data exceeding the real capacity will overwrite the already present data, so you will eventually lose the files. Also, if you try formatting these drives, say, from exFAT to NTFS/HFS, your operating system will try working with the capacity that the controller reports, so the drive ends up corrupted

[@SeroKitsune]

Buying anything memory related on AliExpress is essentially playing a lottery, because you're gonna get scammed 90% of the time.

[@riphunter5100]

I just bought an 2230 Western Digital SSD for my steam deck and is 100% genuine.I checked the serial number in the WD website and it mach the drive and the WD dashboard software also recognizes it as a genuine SSD so to not get scammed you only need to do A PROPER RESEARCH OF WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE BUYING like always on everything or you gonna get played by dishonest scumbags 90% of the time.

[@SeroKitsune]

@@riphunter5100 Explain how one is supposed to check the serial number before buying? Also, was it at least worth the risk and you actually got a good deal?

[@10percent4DaBigGuy]

i remember a few years ago my friend god a 128GB thumb drive! lol after doing in some digging i was able to figure it was only a 2GB

[@nekrosoft13]

I feel sorry for the people that actually fall for this...

[@androxilogin]

Of course you did. Never trust memory from foreign providers. It's fun to find random cheap things, from such places and sometimes they even turn out to be a great deal. But NEVER a storage device. Never. Interesting to see inside of those drives being a hot glued cheapo micro SD. Just ridiculous.

[@callumbush1]

Yeah well it's Ali Express you shouldn't expect anything else!

[@EdwardJamesHardinII]

Always make sure you are purchasing from reputable vendors, especially if you are thinking about backing up your collection of CD's.

[@mathieubaron16320]

Thanks U from France ,i'm just wondered if it was interesting to buy this kind of SSD in Aliexpress ,you gave me the answer 😅😅😅

[@Darkk6969]

I've seen this sorta thing on Amazon all the time. Like 4TB flash drive for $10. Yeah right. If the deal is too good to be true then it probably is.

[@jimshannononsounds]

I recently bought a 4Tb m.2 ssd from Amazon for something like Cad $350. It was working fine until I got the blue screen. I took my back up ssd and computer to our local PC retailer. We took out the 4tb ssd and re-installed the original. No blue screen. The tech took the Amazon ssd to test. He returned saying the ssd was smoking on the test bench. Contact points on the ssd were exposed. I'll never buy computer equipment from Amazon again.

[@Darkk6969]

@@jimshannononsounds Ya, I've bought most of my computer parts off of NewEgg for this reason.

[@philiptownsend4026]

Never ever buy anything from that particular Chinese source. I've had a few reasons for tears purchasing from them, I gave them a second chance, then a third, then nonononono to any more.

[@IskanderVFX]

there's another kind of scam way worse, they are selling fake drives but with the supposed right capacity and information and with a lower than regular price but not so low so it could seems like a legit discount or something, I've seen already 4 listings on fb marketplace, one of the drivers was a 990 2tb with M + B Key connector it was like 30 eur off or something

[@charginginprogresss]

exfat = SDHC/SDXC, no SD card afaik is formatted NTFS, and if it's bigger than 32 GB it will not be FAT32 Also not detected by crystaldisk because it's not a disk

[@ryanmanner2503]

Samsung doesn't even make M.2 drives with 4TB of storage, they only go up to 2TB currently.

[@thomasbedford1258]

lol the reason you got scammed is in the title like AliExpress is good for crap but don't buy hardware from china in any format lol

[@theodordan680]

if one of these stores would be anywhere around my house....next day it would be in the newspaper burned down due to an electrical fault...marchandise included..

[@allthejars5664]

"How I Scammed Myself" 😂

[@AlexS-b5y]

You didnt spend 24h to complete the test for the content 👍 The main question is has it a real size. If it has, and its read speed is ok it might be an option for cheap price even if its writing speed is as low as a cheap usb flash - for reading scenarios. But thanks to all those "reviewers" that cannot complete tests we will never know that. 👏

[@JoshuaBelmont]

it is so rare, all 990 pro sales in aliexpress have 5 starts reviews and lot of sales. i dont know what to think.

[@brazilpaes]

I bought one, thats weird af, after 64gb the thing drops to 7,4mb/s or less and sometimes this thing even freezes, i stopped the test after 5 hours too, its seems nothing going anywhere.

[@Dagoth666Ur]

I was thinking to smash dislike for finacing the scamers but had to give like for the chilass furball :)

[@kreuner11]

Seagate does manufacture real Backup Plus drives, but they use their own design rather than the generic case

[@MarkBarrett]

Amazon sells these type of products too, and will block your reviews if you mention it was fake.

[@MandM89]

Another thing is that the more crap you order, the destination country loses example "How the Hell can China Ship for Free to your Door??!?"

[@XantheFIN]

Chinese rubs the IC identifications off not to hide info from end customers in west.. but to give middle finger any other Chinese competitors who would just start manufacturing them.

[@rods427]

Just like a 980 PRO from Amazon who is controlled by an realtek

[@Nanerbeet]

Scammazon is littered with these scam drives.

[@zyghom]

it is now on Amazon, for 49 only, 4 TB ;-) I am surprised Amazon allows this BS

[@santiniperico8627]

Lord have mercy, these people want to build a moonbase? 😂🤣😂🤣

[@globaloverground8241]

I 've received a couple of 4TB NVME for £25 from AliExpress and once partitioned and formatted they run super-fast especially sequential use as external drives on my Mac. I keep it well cooled, a second mirroring and all synchronised to the cloud. I was never expecting this much with something that costs 95% less than my genuine disks and certainly wouldn't replace a machine's start up drive with one. However these NVMEs save me thousands of pounds a year. One just has to be sensible. Plus the white saviour in me is glad there's a chance some of the money scammed from the ignorant and entitled ones buying the flash card in a 2.5" box might filter down to the million modern day slaves that make their 'victims'' idiotic lives possible. I might even chuckle at the thought from time to time.

[@shadoman7682]

What I don't understand is why (even genuine) are so different in price when it comes to the PCIe SSD & Sata SSD. The SSD's in the case have more to them. Like a case. The PCIe SSD's are just a circuit board. Surely they must cost less to produce, yet they will be 3 times the price.

[@LinuxGalore]

This is why you always look at the reviews, often people will post screenshots of the speed test. So unless there are lots of reviews with screenshots, don't buy the drive. My experience using this method has resulted with me receiving NVMe drives that have lined up with the reviewers tests. The other big giveaway is price, there is no such thing as a free lunch, so if it is cheaper than the average price you are buying crap.

[@DankNugs42]

I'm surprised he's never heard or read about these drives and how they work before, they're quite common. They basically have a small SD card in them, like he said, but they're made so that they copy over itself over and over to make it seem like it can write 60TB of data. Any data written will of course actually get re-written on top of it and will be completely corrupt and unusable.