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A part of me will see stuff like "3TB Flash Drive" on AliExpress for $3 and briefly consider buying it. Like, I know it's obviously not true, it's obviously a

A part of me will see stuff like "3TB Flash Drive" on AliExpress for $3 and briefly consider buying it. Like, I know it's obviously not true, it's obviously a lie, but I also am curious about what I would actually get. I never do it because I don't really see the point of paying money for something that will immediately go into a landfill, but it's always tempting.

bombcar 2y ago
Back when it was being done with external hard drives there were YouTube channels dedicated to breaking them open and experimenting with how they did it. Fun stuff to watch on a boring afternoon.
jayrot 2y ago
The potpourri of a youtube channel, Atomic Shrimp, has done a couple interesting videos doing just that.
- pogue 2y ago
  His channel is where I first heard of this scam. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UsWx1iO-aeA https://youtube.com/watch?v=UsWx1iO-aeA
megous 2y ago
For consumer stuff like this, you'll obviously get something else. But sometimes you can get recycled components if the price obviously is not sane, where recycling is an option. It's only fraud if the description mentions new and original. :)
- tombert 2y ago
  My trick to get decently priced computer equipment is to buy used stuff from data centers; generally that stuff will sell for pennies because their goal is to "get rid of it", not "get rid of it for a profit". Desktop network cards and switches are almost always available for very little (sometimes literally just $1 + shipping).
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Look at govdeals.com for stuff from universities, they seem to sell a lot of their surplus hardware there.
    - tombert 2y ago
      Govdeals is sort of addictive. I've only bought stuff on there a few times, but it's fun to look around and see stuff like "pallet of 400 laptops" selling for $600.
  - callalex 2y ago
    How do you find such things? In person or online somewhere?
    - tombert 2y ago
      Sibling comment mentioned Govdeals, which is a place I'll look sometimes if I can find something near me or they're willing to ship. You can look on Craigslist as well, especially if you live in a large metro area (I live in NYC so it's easy to find lots of corporate surplus). Companies will often need to upgrade all their infra and liquidate their equipment. My printer is a giant nearly 20 year old HP office thing that I got for $30 + $100 for the Uber back home from an office that did a full IT renewal.
  - pogue 2y ago
    When you say data centers, what do you mean? If I was looking on Craigslist or whatever for this, how would I be able to tell which seller is a data center?
    - tombert 2y ago
      If you look up some kind of network equipment in a large metro area on Craiglist, you will often find data center resellers or sometimes just offices and the like directly. There’s not a clear way to determine if the entity you’re buying from is a data center, but if you’re buying a 5+ year old 10gbe PCIe card it’s very likely that it’s from a data center.
axiolite 2y ago
A few sellers on eBay are honest Description: This item is upgraded by 32 GB Pen Flash Drive to 2TB 32GB-2TB, the actual capacity is 32G, the computer displays 2TB, the detection is also 2TB, more than 32G things can be stored, but not displayed. https://www.ebay.com/itm/234810575961 That's not bad. Most counterfeits I get are just 2GB so hardly useful. Still, the counterfeit firmware makes compatibility issues more likely, so better to buy one without the counterfeiting.
- p51-remorse 2y ago
  Is there any reason I would deliberately purchase one of these over a standard 32GB drive? Trying to think of if there’s a case where I would want to trick some hardware into thinking it has a 2TB drive when it really doesn’t?
  - floam 2y ago
    btrfs unable to accommodate further writes but not logically full, needs more space to start deleting stuff. YOLO
- dns_snek 2y ago
  > more than 32G things can be stored, but not displayed. That's certainly an interesting way to phrase it. I use /dev/null for a similar purpose with the added benefit that it can store petabytes of data, but sadly we don't have the technology to display it yet.
  - betagammaxyz 2y ago
    Lol. That's up there with the [1-bit Bloom filter](https://www.xkcd.com/2934/ https://www.xkcd.com/2934/)
- KomoD 2y ago
  But why would anyone want a fake 2TB though? Surely they write this to cover their ass when people don't read the entire listing.
gosub100 2y ago
I did this on Amazon knowing it was a scam and immediately returned it just to drive up their numbers and hopefully get them shut down faster. I have no idea if that did any good, but what disappointed me was Amazon only gave me credit, not a full refund.
- megous 2y ago
  Yeah, aliexpress returns real money.
mavamaarten 2y ago
And there's honest stuff on there too, loads of it actually. I bought a 128GB SSD from there many years ago for $10. I expected nothing but like you say, I was curious about what I'd get and something faster than a shitty USB stick with decent storage capacity was all I was after. I verified it, and it works perfectly and it's 128GB as described, it just lacks cache so it bogs down on super large files. But for $10 I couldn't buy a better USB stick.
- userbinator 2y ago
  They may have true capacity but long-term retention is yet to be established: https://htwingnut.com/2022/09/11/ssd-as-long-term-storage-testing/ https://htwingnut.com/2022/09/11/ssd-as-long-term-storage-te... There's even SLC USB drives being advertised, an otherwise extremely overpriced item these days, with sellers posting the exact part numbers and pictures of the insides as evidence. Those may be using recycled flash.
- tombert 2y ago
  A few years ago Micro Center had a coupon for a free 120gb SSD, which I guess worked because I ended up going there and buying stuff in order to redeem it. The SSD wasn't great, it was pretty slow, but it did work, and I have used it in conjunction with a USB SATA adapter as something where I can write lots and lots of tiny files for projects I work on [1], and where I don't particularly care if I break it. Surprisingly, it's still holding up...pretty good for free! [1] One project I've done involves breaking up video files into a picture of every frame, then do some kind of image processing, write the new files, and then glue them back together, which means there can be a ton of writes on there that I don't want to be done on the expensive and irreplaceable internal SSD on my Mac.
userbinator 2y ago
https://www.trendforce.com/price/flash https://www.trendforce.com/price/flash TLC flash is currently less than $0.10/GB. $3 will probably get you a 32GB drive with flash of dubious quality.

bombcar 2y ago

Back when it was being done with external hard drives there were YouTube channels dedicated to breaking them open and experimenting with how they did it. Fun stuff to watch on a boring afternoon.

jayrot 2y ago

The potpourri of a youtube channel, Atomic Shrimp, has done a couple interesting videos doing just that.

pogue 2y ago
His channel is where I first heard of this scam. https://youtube.com/watch?v=UsWx1iO-aeA https://youtube.com/watch?v=UsWx1iO-aeA

megous 2y ago

For consumer stuff like this, you'll obviously get something else. But sometimes you can get recycled components if the price obviously is not sane, where recycling is an option. It's only fraud if the description mentions new and original. :)

tombert 2y ago
My trick to get decently priced computer equipment is to buy used stuff from data centers; generally that stuff will sell for pennies because their goal is to "get rid of it", not "get rid of it for a profit". Desktop network cards and switches are almost always available for very little (sometimes literally just $1 + shipping).
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Look at govdeals.com for stuff from universities, they seem to sell a lot of their surplus hardware there.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Govdeals is sort of addictive. I've only bought stuff on there a few times, but it's fun to look around and see stuff like "pallet of 400 laptops" selling for $600.
- callalex 2y ago
  How do you find such things? In person or online somewhere?
  - tombert 2y ago
    Sibling comment mentioned Govdeals, which is a place I'll look sometimes if I can find something near me or they're willing to ship. You can look on Craigslist as well, especially if you live in a large metro area (I live in NYC so it's easy to find lots of corporate surplus). Companies will often need to upgrade all their infra and liquidate their equipment. My printer is a giant nearly 20 year old HP office thing that I got for $30 + $100 for the Uber back home from an office that did a full IT renewal.
- pogue 2y ago
  When you say data centers, what do you mean? If I was looking on Craigslist or whatever for this, how would I be able to tell which seller is a data center?
  - tombert 2y ago
    If you look up some kind of network equipment in a large metro area on Craiglist, you will often find data center resellers or sometimes just offices and the like directly. There’s not a clear way to determine if the entity you’re buying from is a data center, but if you’re buying a 5+ year old 10gbe PCIe card it’s very likely that it’s from a data center.

axiolite 2y ago

A few sellers on eBay are honest Description: This item is upgraded by 32 GB Pen Flash Drive to 2TB 32GB-2TB, the actual capacity is 32G, the computer displays 2TB, the detection is also 2TB, more than 32G things can be stored, but not displayed. https://www.ebay.com/itm/234810575961 That's not bad. Most counterfeits I get are just 2GB so hardly useful. Still, the counterfeit firmware makes compatibility issues more likely, so better to buy one without the counterfeiting.

p51-remorse 2y ago
Is there any reason I would deliberately purchase one of these over a standard 32GB drive? Trying to think of if there’s a case where I would want to trick some hardware into thinking it has a 2TB drive when it really doesn’t?
- floam 2y ago
  btrfs unable to accommodate further writes but not logically full, needs more space to start deleting stuff. YOLO
dns_snek 2y ago
> more than 32G things can be stored, but not displayed. That's certainly an interesting way to phrase it. I use /dev/null for a similar purpose with the added benefit that it can store petabytes of data, but sadly we don't have the technology to display it yet.
- betagammaxyz 2y ago
  Lol. That's up there with the [1-bit Bloom filter](https://www.xkcd.com/2934/ https://www.xkcd.com/2934/)
KomoD 2y ago
But why would anyone want a fake 2TB though? Surely they write this to cover their ass when people don't read the entire listing.

gosub100 2y ago

I did this on Amazon knowing it was a scam and immediately returned it just to drive up their numbers and hopefully get them shut down faster. I have no idea if that did any good, but what disappointed me was Amazon only gave me credit, not a full refund.

megous 2y ago
Yeah, aliexpress returns real money.

mavamaarten 2y ago

And there's honest stuff on there too, loads of it actually. I bought a 128GB SSD from there many years ago for $10. I expected nothing but like you say, I was curious about what I'd get and something faster than a shitty USB stick with decent storage capacity was all I was after. I verified it, and it works perfectly and it's 128GB as described, it just lacks cache so it bogs down on super large files. But for $10 I couldn't buy a better USB stick.

userbinator 2y ago
They may have true capacity but long-term retention is yet to be established: https://htwingnut.com/2022/09/11/ssd-as-long-term-storage-testing/ https://htwingnut.com/2022/09/11/ssd-as-long-term-storage-te... There's even SLC USB drives being advertised, an otherwise extremely overpriced item these days, with sellers posting the exact part numbers and pictures of the insides as evidence. Those may be using recycled flash.
tombert 2y ago
A few years ago Micro Center had a coupon for a free 120gb SSD, which I guess worked because I ended up going there and buying stuff in order to redeem it. The SSD wasn't great, it was pretty slow, but it did work, and I have used it in conjunction with a USB SATA adapter as something where I can write lots and lots of tiny files for projects I work on [1], and where I don't particularly care if I break it. Surprisingly, it's still holding up...pretty good for free! [1] One project I've done involves breaking up video files into a picture of every frame, then do some kind of image processing, write the new files, and then glue them back together, which means there can be a ton of writes on there that I don't want to be done on the expensive and irreplaceable internal SSD on my Mac.

userbinator 2y ago

https://www.trendforce.com/price/flash https://www.trendforce.com/price/flash TLC flash is currently less than $0.10/GB. $3 will probably get you a 32GB drive with flash of dubious quality.