by Walmart is not the only major online retailer struggling with fake products online. Hundreds of listings from dozens of sellers eBay (opens in new tab) and AliExpress (opens in new tab) are currently on sale 64 TB and 128 TB SSDs at low prices.
The problem is that there are no mainstream 128TB or 64TB SSDs. Samsung introduced a 128TB SSD in August 2022, while Nimbus Data is selling a 64TB SSD only to enterprise customers, but neither will sell for the $30 the fraudulent sellers are asking. Despite this being a clear case of “too good to be true”, dozens have been stung.
TechRadar Reader Colin M contacted us last week having bought a 30TB SSD from AliExpress, only to find it had been connected.
“It appears that the actual total capacity of the drive is 128GB, which is 2 x 64GB shown as the two drives. I tried copying 250GB+ files to one of the ‘disks’ and although it seemed to work fine when it finished, I then clicked properties to show the actual GBs,” he explained.
“I suspect the drive contains 2 x 64GB SD cards programmed to disguise the SD cards as 15TB drives. When the ‘drive’ is copied to capacity, the program just replaces files giving the appearance of working properly.”
Buyers beware
Counterfeit products have been a problem for centuries, and online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and AliExpress have allowed this issue to become global, making it much more difficult to eradicate.
The worrying thing is that not only are these records fake, but also it could also easily be infected with malware. Earlier this year, hackers mailed USB flash drives infected with ransomware, even teddy bears in the packaging.
SSD prices are falling rapidly with 2TB models available for less than $100, an all-time low caused by falling demand and excess inventory. However, we wouldn’t expect high-capacity drives (4TB, 8TB, or 16TB SSDs) to see a similar drop in price because demand is still high for these target markets (enterprises, businesses, buyers).
Amazon seems to have successfully avoided this scam, possibly because it has tighter controls on sellers from mainland China, although there are others – like fake 2TB USB flash drives (opens in new tab) the 2TB microSD cards (opens in new tab).
TechRadar Pro has reached out to eBay and Aliexpress to find out what they’re doing to weed out fake product listings and weed out dodgy sellers ahead of lucrative 11.11 Singles sales, Black Friday and Cyber-Monday.
