I bought a '4TB' SATA SSD from AliExpress for $40 - It's a slightly different scam!

Fairly short video from me again but there is the usual rambly bits in this one so if you need to use Timestamps to skip through, they are integrated into the video.
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Greetings and welcome to another installment in the iWish series, a series in which I purchase various questionable products to see if they are any good...most of the time they are not but I buy this stuff so you don't have to!

I found this while browsing AliExpress but I think I showed this on Stream and you folks wanted to see it so thank you to those folks, I do appreciate you all so much and I was curious about this - even though I said I wouldn't buy more.

It's because ALL the other ones I've looked at have been EXTERNAL SSDs. This is an Internal one with a SATA interface.
That's the part I was curious about.
We all know it wouldn't be 4TB for $40 AUD but have they put a Micro SD on a board again or something...that's what I wanted to find out!

You all know the drill here, stick with reputable companies and manufacturers and if it's too good to be true then it likely is.

I am taking a slight break at the moment so I've slowed down with videos but I'll catch up soon.
This was an easier video to work on so it was fine.
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Download H2TestW to test your SSD, HDD or Flash Drives:

Link to the investigation of this:

TIMESTAMPS:
Introduction & Disclaimers: 0:00
The Listing, Pricing & Comparison: 1:44
Unboxing: 3:56
The 4TB Drive & Taking it apart: 4:58
Plugging it into a PC & First Issues: 6:17
Testing with H2TestW, More Issues etc: 7:24
Further Analysis of the Board: 8:40
HD Sentinel, AS SSD Benchmark, Second Test & Results: 9:50
Final Thoughts, Be Cautious & Rambling: 10:57
Thanking folks & Outro: 12:27

Be good people!
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SOCIAL:
My second channel that thought we was quiet riot:
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Music/Video:
Outro:
Mick Gordon - Cultist Base (Doom Eternal Soundtrack)

iWish Theme:
Andrew & Simon Hale - L.A Noire Main Menu Theme
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*All images used in the video belong to their rightful owners but are used under fair use/demonstration.
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#Scam #4TB #AliExpress

[SMOOREZ]

*It's an obvious scam but people may still fall for it if they aren't too careful. Just be careful when buying stuff like this*

Hey everyone, welcome back to another installment in my iWish series!
I said I wouldn't. I know, but I bought this as a pure curiousity, simply because it uses SATA instead of USB.
Hope this was still entertaining for the first video of 2024 (Happy New Year also everyone!) and thank you
to the folks that did donate towards seeing this and other products on the channel. I appreciate you all so much :)

Let me know what you thought of this one down below!

TIMESTAMPS:
Introduction & Disclaimers: 0:00
The Listing, Pricing & Comparison: 1:44
Unboxing: 3:56
The 4TB Drive & Taking it apart: 4:58
Plugging it into a PC & First Issues: 6:17
Testing with H2TestW, More Issues etc: 7:24
Further Analysis of the Board: 8:40
HD Sentinel, AS SSD Benchmark, Second Test & Results: 9:50
Final Thoughts, Be Cautious & Rambling: 10:57
Thanking folks & Outro: 12:27

Be good people!

[treelineresearch]

Hilarious that they lasered off the markings from the controller chip but put the part number on the board silkscreen. Kinda makes me wonder if some of the laser-etched/sanded chips aren't blanked to hinder reverse engineering, but rather late-process reject chips from real manufacturers that get blanked on the production line to prevent resale as genuine but still make it into products in the "literally trash" end of the market.

[Trick-Framed]

A few years back when a drive like this was $65 I found a 512GB Lexar SSD on Amazon for $35 shipped. I thought it was too good to be true but it was Amazon so I knew i'd get my money back and went for it. Turns out it was 100% legit and someone was dropping stock in a liquidation sale. I should have bought 10 of them. You win some. You lose some. I still use that drive to this very day as a test drive for PCs I assemble. And it still runs like a champ.

[WhoLover]

If I *can* buy an SSD that gives me better "security Sex" then I WILL buy that SSD.

[DarkDragonEWA]

I don't know why, but even after all the storage device videos I've seen you make I still love watching this stuff. It's just fun seeing the different lengths they go to to make these things.

[bertbrecht]

I was so glad to hear that you do file complaints and try to get your money back. Thanks for what you do!

[MoisesCaster]

I bought a 64GB flash drive, but it only had 128MB. I modified the firmware and now I have a 128MB flash drive. 😅

[foxmulder]

Security sex is fairly new technology, that's impressive tech.

[BlueEyedVibeChecker]

I miss Sunbow, I bought a 960GB SSD from them on Amazon, and it outperformed my Samsung QVO drive.
But the following pay day, they were completely gone without a trace.
Wish I'd bought two the first time instead of being sceptical.

[mitabpraga]

Inevitable, I suppose. Thanks for the video, one more thing to warn my clients about. Especially the guy who 2 years ago gave me a €40 "1TB" flash drive to back up his stuff to, the guy who last year gave me a €50 "4TB" USB SSD for the purpose and the guy who I just know would get one of these tomorrow.

[RyzesTechZone]

These obviously scam tech items are a guilty pleasure to watch. We all know its bullshit but seeing the stuff these scammers do to make it seem legit is so interesting

[DarkestVampire]

I wish there was a way to re-flash the card back to being recognized as 120GB. If it worked as intended, it might actually be useful rather than just being E-waste.

[denny]

I recently bought a kodak branded 128GB ssd off aliexpress for £3. Interestingly, the pcb looks very similar to this one, the controller is also a realtek, and the flash chips also appear to have had the markings removed, though the difference is that the advertised capacity actually comes up in the testing. Not sure about the reliability as I know the chips might be used/low quality, but since I use it in my test PC with a throwaway Windows install for plugging in and testing random things, I don't really care if it suddenly dies.

[fearbot]

I enjoy getting fake storage devices in my hands because it's super fun when it's possible for me to re-flash firmware and change the "real" name of the drives that the computer sees.

This drive could be some fun if it was a bit cheaper, would love to see if those extra NAND spots work.

[johnruschmeyer]

A couple of years ago, I fell for this basic scam on a 1TB drive from an ebay seller. In my case, the usable capacity was something just north of 64GB. I ended up finding a flashing tool on a Russian site that let me flash it to be a 64GB drive. I only use it for light duty, but it seems to operate with no issues.

[betoho]

Congratulations on the enlightening video, I bought a HD SSD very similar to the one in the video promising to be 2 TB, but when I went to use it, I discovered that despite showing the capacity of 2 TB in Windows, it crashed whenever the amount of data exceeded 120 GB, the internal structure of my equipment is exactly the same as shown in the video. Thank you very much for clarifying our doubts.

[cameramaker]

I would try to make a 96 GB partition and try the H2TestW again (multiple times) - either it will work, or not, depends on where the capacity was faked and how resilient is the wear levelling. If it will work, it should just report lot of damaged cells (above capacity), as long as the untrimmed space stays smaller than the total NAND capacity.

[MonochromeWench]

If the controller is a standard part the flashing tool is likely available somewhere on the internet probably on some sketchy looking russian site for hardware hackers. The flashing tool will let you specify the flash chip configuration among other internal parameters and even the sata model number you want the device to appear as to the computer.

[Skobeloff...]

Aliexpress is great if you are willing to think.

[ErraticPT]

Beware even if this drive could be flashed back to its true capacity the chips used for storage are often old ones ripped from used drives.
So they would soon fail anyhow.
The scammers are also doing this with drives that are actually the rated capacity (ie a 4 TB that is 4 TB) but often have multiple makes/models of heavily used chips on a single board.
Certainly wouldn't trust any data to them!