Dad’s New 20TB HDD Wasn’t What It Seemed

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It appears we’re back in familiar waters, dealing with another instance of that hard drive fraud from not too long ago. It seems as if both the cosmos and these scammers have an unlimited supply of chutzpah. This time around, they’ve orchestrated a grand scheme, duping users into purchasing counterfeit drives that overpromise and underdeliver once more. With misleading goods swamping the marketplace, it’s growing increasingly difficult to discern authentic offers. Here is all you need to know about the newest hard drive scam.

The Growing Hard Drive Scam

It turns out that the advice ‘Think big’ can also be applied to fraudsters, as evidenced by a recent post on Reddit about a new hard drive scam. In this instance, the counterfeit item isn’t just a 1TB drive, but an impressive 20TB one. The trick used is the same one employed before. A Reddit user named The__Unflushable received what appeared to be a broken hard drive from his father and decided to investigate further. Upon opening the drive, he immediately noticed something was amiss. Instead of a genuine hard drive, a USB stick was found inside the plastic casing, with 12 metal weights glued in place to conceal the scam.

Dad dropped off his new 20Tb HDD to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it…
by u/The__Unflushable in pcmasterrace

The post attracted a massive response on Reddit, amassing approximately 34,000 ‘likes’. It underscores the persisting issue of scammers tricking buyers with counterfeit products that claim excessive storage capacities. To the disappointment of many, what was marketed as a 20TB storage drive turned out to be nothing more than a standard USB stick, rendering it completely ineffective. The rising incidence of fake hard drives has left users disgruntled, prompting them to exercise greater caution when shopping for high-capacity storage devices online.

Reddit Users Spot the Fraud

In the comments section, the original poster mentioned that the drive appears as a 19TB disk on Windows, but freezes whenever you try to access it. This issue reminded him of a video by Linus Tech Tips about USB sticks. It seems that the small circuit board on this device tricks Windows into believing it’s a large storage device, but in reality, it has no usable storage space at all. This incident showcases the cunning deception involved in such scams, as the drive appears to be something it is not – merely a shell with no actual functionality.

Users’ responses were straightforward: anyone finding what seems an excessively large storage for a minimal cost should remain cautious. Yet, upon examining the image, particularly the glue securing the plates, Reddit users – many from communities outside of the virtuous EarlyGame sphere – started contemplating alternative explanations. This writer ponders why there’s a solitary unassembled diode within the plastic enclosure.

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2025-02-25 20:09