{"id":57314,"date":"2022-08-26T18:40:01","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T18:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/walmart-lists-a-30tb-portable-ssd-for-39-it-is-naturally-a-scam\/"},"modified":"2022-08-26T18:40:01","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T18:40:01","slug":"walmart-lists-a-30tb-portable-ssd-for-39-it-is-naturally-a-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/walmart-lists-a-30tb-portable-ssd-for-39-it-is-naturally-a-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart lists a 30TB portable SSD for $39.  It is naturally a scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<p>If someone tries to sell you 30TB of solid-state storage for less than $40, consider turning around and running away, no matter how many clip-art rockets they use in their pictures.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 130:single\/related:9d13a8cb0a0dc11b0366c5cccc686cb1 --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>It feels like high-capacity SSDs are getting cheaper all the time, but in the words of a security researcher known as <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RayRedacted\" target=\"_blank\">Ray Redacted<\/a> on Twitter, there are still some deals that are <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RayRedacted\/status\/1562914396732801025\" target=\"_blank\">too good to be true<\/a>.  In the spirit of discovery, he bought a &#8220;30TB&#8221; external SSD from AliExpress for $31.40, which also happens to be listed on Walmart&#8217;s website for $39 (I am linking it for educational and entertainment value, please do not buy it).<\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">For those of you who are following this thread but not understanding the scam: <\/p>\n<p>Scammer gets two 512MB Flash drives.  Or 1 gigabyte, or whatever.  They then add hacked firmware that makes it misreport its size.  <\/p>\n<p>Windows reports EXACTLY 15.0 terabytes.  Note 14.89, Note 14.78<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ray [REDACTED] (@RayRedacted) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RayRedacted\/status\/1563021492157579264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">August 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">But when you go to WRITE a big file, hacked firmware simply writes all new data on top of old data, while keeping directory (with false info) intact. <\/p>\n<p>H2Testw actually WRITES &#038; then RE-READS its data.  But the scammer slowed the bus down from 5 gigabits per second to .48 gigabits<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ray [REDACTED] (@RayRedacted) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RayRedacted\/status\/1563021493860044801?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">August 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<p>On the inside, this &#8220;SSD&#8221; looks like two small-capacity microSD cards hot glued to a USB 2.0-capable board.  This board&#8217;s firmware has been modified so that each of these cards <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RayRedacted\/status\/1562930411881340928\" target=\"_blank\">reports its capacity<\/a> as &#8220;15.0TB&#8221; to the operating system, for a total of 30TB, even though the actual capacity of the cards is much lower.  This is another giveaway;  Windows reports drive capacities in yokebytes (1,024 mebibytes) or tebibytes (1,024 mebibytes), while drive manufacturers use gigabytes (1,000 megabytes) and terabytes (1,000 gigabytes).  This is why a 1TB drive normally only has a reported capacity of 930-ish GB, rather than a nice round number.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad_wrapper\" aria-label=\"In Content advertisement\">\n    <span class=\"ad_notice\">Advertisement <\/span>    <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<figure class=\"image shortcode-img full-width\" style=\"width:980px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"On the inside, this \" ssd=\"\" features=\"\" what=\"\" appears=\"\" to=\"\" be=\"\" a=\"\" pair=\"\" of=\"\" microsd=\"\" cards=\"\" or=\"\" some=\"\" other=\"\" kind=\"\" cheap=\"\" low-capacity=\"\" flash=\"\" memory=\"\" hot=\"\" glued=\"\" circuit=\"\" board.=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/30tb-usb-980x551.jpg?resize=980%2C551&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-text\">enlarge <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> On the inside, this &#8220;SSD&#8221; features what appears to be a pair of microSD cards or some other kind of cheap, low-capacity flash memory hot glued to a circuit board.<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The drive is even more clever when it comes to tricking people into thinking it&#8217;s working.  It preserves the directory structure of whatever you&#8217;re copying, but when it&#8217;s &#8220;copying&#8221; your data, it just keeps writing and rewriting over the tiny microSD cards.  Everything will look fine until you go to access a file, only to find that the data isn&#8217;t there.<\/p>\n<p>Replies to Ray Redacted&#8217;s thread are full of alternate versions of this scam, including multiple iterations of the hot-glued microSD version and at least one that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SmithyVaankrach\/status\/1563022829968564225\" target=\"_blank\">hid a USB thumb drive inside a larger enclosure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Fake USB storage devices are neither new nor rare, though this one makes spectacularly egregious claims about its price-per-gigabyte.  When it comes to buying storage online, common-sense advice is best: stick to name brands, buy from trustworthy sellers (not just retail sites you trust\u2014the Walmart listing is sold by &#8220;JD E Commerce America Limited,&#8221; whatever that is) , and know that if a deal seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If someone tries to sell you 30TB of solid-state storage for less than $40, consider turning around and running away, no matter how many clip-art rockets they use in their pictures. It feels like high-capacity SSDs are getting cheaper all the time, but in the words of a security researcher known as Ray Redacted on &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/walmart-lists-a-30tb-portable-ssd-for-39-it-is-naturally-a-scam\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Walmart lists a 30TB portable SSD for $39.  It is naturally a scam<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":59564,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/walmart-lists-a-30tb-portable-ssd-for-just-39-its-a-scam\/","url_meta":{"origin":57314,"position":0},"title":"Walmart Lists a 30TB Portable SSD for Just $39.  It&#8217;s a Scam","date":"August 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"What's the deal with that supposed 30TB external SSD being sold for just $31.40 on China-based online shopping site AliExpress? It's also listed on Walmart's website for just $39 \u2014 but first, listen to cybersecurity researcher calling himself \"Ray [REDACTED]\". Scammer gets two 512MB Flash drives. Or 1 gigabyte, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":60445,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/buyer-beware-walmarts-30tb-ssd-for-39-is-the-latest-storage-scam\/","url_meta":{"origin":57314,"position":1},"title":"Buyer beware: Walmart&#8217;s 30TB SSD for $39 is the latest storage scam","date":"August 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"How much would you pay for 30 terabytes of portable flash storage? At current market prices, you could make that happen for about $4000, assuming you were okay with splitting it between multiple drives. But what would you say if I told you I could give you 30 TB of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Walmart fake 30TB drive","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/b2c-contenthub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/walmart-30-tb.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":24963,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/seagate-30tb-hamr-hdds-to-ship-by-mid-2023\/","url_meta":{"origin":57314,"position":2},"title":"Seagate 30TB+ HAMR HDDs To Ship By Mid-2023","date":"July 25, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"After several months, Seagate has officially revealed its intentions to launch the next-gen HDD in the middle of 2023. This announcement comes after months of advertising the development of its second-generation HDD platform that will showcase the latest heat-assisted magnetic recording ( HAMR) technology and offer memory capacities of over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.wccftech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/seagate-roadmap-2021-capacities-740x415.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65359,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/new-optical-disc-tech-could-make-5-per-tb-possible\/","url_meta":{"origin":57314,"position":3},"title":"New optical disc tech could make $5 per TB possible","date":"September 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Forward-looking: Despite consumer PCs and game consoles transitioning to faster SSDs, traditional disk drives (HDDs) continue to offer ever more space for cold storage at lower prices. 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The big G has previously bundled a free Nest mini and even a Nest Hub with selected Google One plans in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/walmart-30tb-hdd-612x380.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}