**The Truth Behind Fake SSDs and Flash Drives**

In this episode of The Computer Clan, we're going to bust open a fake SSD and explore what's really going on behind the scenes. We'll take a closer look at the technology used to create these misleading devices and how they're tricking our operating systems.

**The Issue with Quick Look Window**

One thing that stood out during our test was that the Quick Look window in macOS reported incorrectly about the size of this fake SSD. This wasn't the only issue we encountered - the Finder window also showed incorrect information, and opening the library bundle revealed individual files that were corrupted. It turns out that despite showing up as an 8 terabyte volume, this fake SSD can actually only handle 58.2 gigabytes, which is less than 1% of its advertised capacity.

**How Fake SSDs Trick the OS**

So how are these devices managing to trick our operating systems? The answer lies in the firmware that controls the flash storage chips on the SSD board. Firmware is a type of software that's programmed directly into a piece of hardware, but it can be programmed in a misleading way so that the controller tells the OS the incorrect capacity. In this case, the firmware was used to make the fake SSD appear as an M.2 SSD, which would fit in a specific enclosure.

**Busting Open the Fake SSD**

To get to the bottom of what's really going on inside this device, we needed to bust it open and examine its contents. Unfortunately, the glue that held everything together made it difficult to access the components. However, with some heat and careful disassembly, we were able to reveal the truth behind this fake SSD.

**The Surprising Truth**

What we found was not an M.2 SSD at all, but a micro SD card adapter that fit into a USB-C port. This may have been our first clue that something wasn't quite right. And indeed, it turned out that the chip in question is likely to be the controller with fake firmware on it.

**Other Resources and Recommendations**

If you're interested in learning more about this topic, we recommend checking out an episode by AtomicShrimp, who recently dropped a video about fake SSDs and flash drives. They've got some great insights into how these devices are created and what to look out for when shopping for storage solutions.

**Linode: A Reliable Alternative**

While fake SSDs may be cheap, they often come with a price that's not worth paying. That's why we recommend Linode as an alternative. Linode offers affordable Linux virtual machines, 24/7 technical support, and a wide range of apps and tools for building custom applications or deploying existing ones. They also offer award-winning customer support, which is something that some other cloud providers can't match.

**Conclusion**

So there you have it - the truth behind fake SSDs and flash drives. Be wary of those cheap prices and do your research before making a purchase. And if you're looking for a reliable alternative, Linode is definitely worth considering. Thanks for watching this episode of The Computer Clan, and don't forget to check out our sponsor link for a free $100 credit with Linode.

**Supporting the Computer Clan**

By visiting linode.com/computerclan and creating a free account, you'll not only be supporting The Computer Clan but also getting access to a range of affordable Linux virtual machines. And as a special thank you to our viewers, we'll give you a $100 credit to use on Linode's platform. So what are you waiting for? Sign up today and start building your own custom applications or deploying existing ones with ease.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- Oh, wow.I can buy this SSD that'seight terabytes for only $99?Sold.This is a bad idea, isn't it?Sponsored by Linode.(air whooshing)Hey guys, how are you all doing?If you're new here, welcome.My name is Krazy Ken and fake flash drivein SSD scams have plaguedthe internet for yearsand it's finally time forme to tackle this problem.We'll take a look at anexample of a fake SSD productand then I'll show you someways you can spot these thingsin the wild so you don't get tricked.And then I'll show yousome tests you can runso you can see if thesethings live up to the claims.So let's take a look at Londoncomfy.(air whooshing)I heard about this company from oneof my viewers, Marianne,from a Twitter DM.Londoncomfy's website claimsthey're an English familybusiness specializing in retail products.They have a lot ofcategories on their website,many with broken thumbnails.And overall, the giant unfocused listof products just has areally cheap feeling to me.And something that threwme off was this photoof their founder, Margot.When was the last time you saw a real CEOof a serious company posing with a logoof his own business onhis shirt and on a mug.That just seems like a stock photo to me.A quick reverse search proved that.We can see many othersites using the same modelfor their shirt and mug renders.So we can reasonably concludethis founder is totally fake.And if a brand is lying aboutthe founder's name and face,I can only imagine what otherBS is going on under the hood.Oh, and that phone number inthe footer, don't even try it.It doesn't go anywhere.We're off to a great startand we haven't even testedthe product yet.The SSD product page givesyou five storage capacities,ranging from 500 gigabytesto eight terabytes.And it claims this SSD is fastwith 520 megabyte per secondfile transfer speeds.Is that possible in the real world?Absolutely.Solid-state drives typically are fasterthan mechanical hard disc drivesand they can storeterabytes of informationin a really small space.Instead of using a platterwith magnetic particlesand an actuator arm, SSD store datain a chip using electrons,a series of gates,and more architecturethat goes beyond the scopeof this episode.This allows the drive to store a lotof data in a compact and quiet spaceand it lets the computeraccess it really fast,but are we truly gonna get fast speedsand high capacity with this product?Let's keep digging.The Londoncomfy website alsogives us a fake countdown timerfor the 25% sale.And this is just ascarcity marketing tacticto give you some urgency to make you wantto buy immediately.Now, I do wanna make adisclaimer about thisbecause I've talked about this a lot.Not all countdown timers are bad.A countdown timer on awebsite doesn't automaticallymean a product is a scam.There are legitimate uses for them,but when a website uses themand they just repeat themselvesover and over and don't actually leadto anything that trulyexpires, that's kind of fishy.Here's a way you can test that.(air whooshing)Take the webpage you're looking at,copy the link and pasteit into an incognitoor private browser window and load it up.If the timer changes, it'slikely a fake countdown timer.So that's the gist ofthe Londoncomfy website.And that brings us tothe first real problemwith this product, the price.(air whooshing)The first big red flag forme was they were sellingan eight terabyte 520 megabyteper second SSD for only $99.That sounds way too good to be true.Now, consumers that aren'tversed in the tech space,may not realize that, but in realitythat doesn't make any business sense.In 2022, if you were to buya real eight terabyte M.2form factor solid-statedrive, you're gonna spendat least $1,000 on the cheaper end.If we look at a 2.5 inch formfactor with the same capacityand similar speeds to whatLondoncomfy is advertising,you're still looking atabout seven times the price.So there is no way Londoncomfyis taking $1,000 part,cramming it into anenclosure and profiting offof a $99 sale.It's impossible.So always cross check prices.If you see a cheap gadget,look it up on another websiteto see what equivalent productsare actually selling for.And if you need help, feel freeto ask someone who you knowthat is more versed in the tech spacebecause they will have abetter sense of the market.So with this crazywebsite, BS countdown timerand ludicrous pricing, youwould think I would run awayfrom a product like this, but of course,I went ahead and bought one.(air whooshing)I purchased the eightterabyte model and boom,the purchase processwas actually really easyand less spam-filled than manyof my other investigations.So I'll give them a gold star there.And it arrived.It took a couple weeks I think,but it didn't arrive inthat fancy shopping bagthat the website shows.What a shame.Anyway, it's here now.So let's take a look at it.(air whooshing)The box has no brand names or any mentionof Londoncomfy which isnot surprising because thisis likely just a genericproduct from China.Oh, made in China.Look at that.And the box advertises USB 3.1 speeds,which in theory would offerpretty fast data transfer rates,but we'll test that out soon.And inside the box, we getthe drive, the USB cableand two adapters.USB-A to C and USB-A to Micro B.And these instructions.When using desktopcomputers, data wires needto be connected to theUSB interface behindthe main cabinet, like a filing cabinet.The power supply onthe tront USB interfaceis generally unstable.Butter fingers, who am I, Linus Tech Tips?Don't shake the body when accessing datawith a mobile hard disc,like the body of the SSDor just like your body in general.Don't do this when using a harddrive, it's very dangerous.Number four, don't fall.Like in general?I mean, yeah, that'sgenerally good advice.So physically, the device looks okay.It's got a metal finish.It's small and compact,but now let's plug it inand test it for real.(duck quacking)Oh, they spelt flash wrong.It's gonna be a long day.(air whooshing)Anyway, I tried formattingthis thing to HFS Plus.The process took about two minuteswhen it usually takes a few seconds.Ultimately, the formatting finishedand I ran Blackmagic's DiskSpeed Test on the drive.And the speeds were atrocious.One megabyte per secondwrite and the read testwouldn't even execute.I reformatted the driveas ExFAT and tried againand funny enough, it got11.3 write and about 18 read.Better but still total crap.Side note, if you're on Windows,you can use CrystalDiskMarkto test your drive speeds.So the speed claims are false.And in the real world if you were tryingto do serious work withthis thing with large files,it would be practicallyimpossible to do that,but I didn't stop there.I opened this device up inthe macOS System Informationapplication and the speed registeredas 480 megabits per second,which is the theoretical speedof the older USB 2.0 standard,which is much slower thanwhat's advertised, USB 3.1.If this was truly a USB 3.1 Gen 1 device,that speed would registeras five gigabits per second,about 10 times faster theoretically.So we have doubledconfirmed that the speedclaims are false.Certainly this productcan't get any worse, right?Let's test the capacity.(air whooshing)I'm using a Windowsprogram called H2testw.This test writes thousands ofone gigabyte files to the SSDand then it verifies them tocalculate the true capacityof the device.For a control, I tested aUSB flash drive that I trustand the test showed no errors.Great, moving on.For this eight terabyte drive,the test needs about 96 hoursto run because the drive speed is so slowand it has a lot ofbites to read and write.And of course, WindowsUpdate rebooted the computerin the middle of the test so I hadto restart from the halfway point.Thanks Windows, it's notlike I have anything betterto do with my life.Actually I don't, sowhatever, but don't worry.I pressed that pause updates buttonso now we should be fine.The test ran for 39 more hoursand then it got interrupted again.I think because I bumped the USB cable.It fits really loosecompared to a normal cable,but that doesn't surprise me.This thing is a cheap piece of crap.Either way I had the data I neededand I couldn't justifyrestarting the test againbecause it takes days to run.The final results shows 58.2gigabytes of data is okayand 3.1 terabytes of data was lost.And 164 gigabytes ofdata was overwritten outof a total 3.37 terabytes verified.So only 58.2 gigabytes ofdata can actually be storedon here which is actuallyway less than I thought itwas gonna be.I was giving this product too much credit,but I wanted to go beyondjust a test program.Now, I wanna try this outwith a real world application,something I do all thetime, video editing.(air whooshing)I reformatted the driveas HFS Plus for macOSand I'm copying an over400 gigabyte final cut pro,video editing library onto the drive.The transfer was incrediblyslow, but on the surfaceit looks like it finished with no errors,but of course the datawas behaving erratically.The final cut library sizewas reported incorrectlyin the Quick Look windowcompared to the Finder window.And the library would not open either.I dug into the library bundleto examine individual files.A movie file that was withinthe 58.2 gigabyte limit,actually opens successfullywhich checks out withthe test results, but all othermovie files were corrupted.So despite showing up in theOS as an eight terabyte volume,it can actually onlyhandle 58.2 gigabytes whichis less than 1% of theadvertised capacity.So how is this thing tricking the OS?Here's how that works.(air whooshing)The flash storage chips onan SSD board need a brainto communicate with therest of the computer.This brain is a controller whichis generally a separateSOC or a system-on-a-chipon the board.The controller uses afirmware so it can functionand communicate properly.And firmware is a type of software thatis programmed directlyinto a piece of hardware.However, this firmware can be programmedin a misleading way sothe controller tellsthe OS the incorrect capacity.And as I have shown, thisSSD does not give youthe advertised speed or capacity.It's not even close.So let's bust this thing open to seeif we can find out what parts it's usingand maybe that willgive us some more cluesas to why this thing sucks so much.And first, I have to give a special thanksto Noah-n Cares, Lane Wallen,and Toby The Greatish.You guys helped me research this episodeand I appreciate that very much.All right, now let's bust this thing open.(upbeat music)Okay, so this thing isjust filled with glue.It really looks like theydon't want you getting insideor that was just their lazyway of securing the components.So the glue was a problem andI've seen some mixed resultsabout using alcohol to dissolve the glue,but I have heard that heat works okay.Unfortunately, I didn't realize that untilafter I busted out my caveman skillsand kind of just cut andsmashed the thing to pieces.So unfortunately we just have some remainsin this baggy here, but stillit helps get my point across.This thing is literallyjust a micro SD boardthat adapts to USB-C.Here's the card smashed in the process,but you can see by the contacts,this is a micro SD card,not an M.2 SSD.And that surprised me becauseI thought it was just gonnabe a cheap storage medium like you'd findin a USB 2.0 pen driveor something, but no,it's literally just a micro SD card.And I'm going to guessthis chip is the controllerthat has the fakey firmware on it.And what's amusing is thescammers shaped the enclosureto make it look like anM.2 SSD would fit in there,but clearly this boarddoesn't fit that spec.I should also mention AtomicShrimp recently droppedan episode about this topic.So feel free to check that out too.Coincidentally, he dropped that episodewhile I was working on my own.Almost as if he's spying on me.Relax Ken, no one is spying on you.I know that, I'm not paranoid.Anyway, yeah, it's a piece of crap,but if you use Linode, theywill give you the speedsand capacity that you actually pay for.They do it right.If you have an applicationor a website that you needto scale or deploy, Linodehas the infrastructureand the 24/7 support youneed, but the cool thing is,Linode is much morethan just data centers.(air whooshing)Linode offers out of box appsfor game servers like TF2,CS:GO, and even Minecraft.You can run your own virtualprivate network with OpenVPN,build an online applicationwith Joomla's contentmanagement system or builda video streaming sitewith a multitude of app choices.There's so much you can dowith Linode's affordableLinux virtual machines.And to boot, they offer award-winning24/7 technical support.To put it simply, if it runson Linux, it runs on Linode.Visit linode.com/computerclan and clickthe create free account button.And when you do that, I'llgive you a 60-day $100 credit,just for watching thisepisode, pretty good deal.And you're also supportingthe Computer Clan.So thank you very much.So be wary of those fakeSSDs and flash drives.And the biggest red flagI would say is the price.Check those prices 'cause after all,if it looks too good tobe true, it probably is.Well, that was a lot to go through.Now I have to store all ofthis footage for this episode.Well, I hope I used a reliable SSDHa ha ha ha(upbeat music)\n"