Walmart is not the only small online marketplace that is coping with fake products online. Hundreds of listings from dozens of sellers on eBay (opens in new tab) and AliExpress (opens in new tab) are currently selling 64TB and 128TB SSDs at rock bottom prices.
There is no mainstream 128TB or 64TB SSDs. Samsung demoed a 128TB SSD back in August 2022, but Nimbus Data sells a 64TB SSD to enterprise customers only, but neither will sell for the $30 that fraudulent vendors are asking for. Despite this being a clear case of unacceptable, many people have been slammed.
The actual drive capacity is 128GB, which is two x 64GB as the two drives. I tried copying 250GB+ files to one of the''drives,'' but it was initially expected to work as normal when it finished, but I then clicked on properties to show actual GBs.
"I suspect the drive contains 2 x 64GB SD cards that are designed to disguise the SD cards as 15TB drives. When the ''drive'' is being copied to reach capacity, the program just overwrites files, giving the appearance of working correctly.
Buyers, beware
Counterfeited goods have been a problem for centuries, and online businesses such as eBay, Amazon, and AliExpress have allowed this issue to become global, making it much more difficult to eliminate.
These drives are not only fake, but they could easily have been infected with malware. Earlier this year, hackers mailed out USB flash drives infected with ransomware, even putting teddy bears on the package.
SSD prices are falling rapidly as 2TB models are available for less than $100, an all-time low caused by a demand spike and an excessive inventory. Despite this, high capacity drives (4TB, 8TB, or 16TB SSD) will not experience any similar price drop, as demand remains high for those target markets (enterprise, corporations, and prosumers).
Amazon appears to have successfully avoided the scam, most likely because it has stricter controls on mainland China''s buyers, although others are - like fake 2TB USB flash drives (opens in new tab) or 2TB microSD cards (opens in new tab).