I Got Scammed - Fake 4TB Samsung SSD from AliExpress

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.