What seemed like a brand-new 20TB hard drive turned out to be something completely unexpected inside.
Ah Sh**, Here We Go Again. Remember that hard drive fraud from just a couple of weeks ago? It seems like not only the universe but also scammers' audacity is endless. This time, they've pulled off a massive scam, tricking users into buying fake drives that promise much more than they actually deliver again. With deceptive products flooding the market, it’s becoming harder to spot a real deal. Here’s everything you need to know about the latest hard drive scam.
The Growing Hard Drive Scam
"Think big" apparently also applies to scammers, as a recent Reddit post highlights a new hard drive scam. This time, the fraudulent product isn’t a 1TB drive, but a massive 20TB one, with the same deceptive method being used. A Reddit user, The__Unflushable, received a seemingly broken hard drive from his father to see what was wrong with it. Upon opening the drive, he quickly realized something was off. Instead of a proper hard drive, a USB stick was placed inside the plastic casing, with 12 metal weights glued in to mask the scam.
Dad dropped off his new 20Tb HDD to see if I could figure out what was wrong with it... by u/The__Unflushable in pcmasterrace
The post gained significant attention after it was shared on Reddit, garnering over 34,000 upvotes. It serves as another reminder of how scammers are trying to deceive consumers by offering fake products that promise large storage capacities. The drive, which was supposed to be a 20TB storage device, had nothing more than a small USB stick inside, making it completely useless. This growing trend of fake hard drives is causing frustration among users, who are now more cautious when purchasing high-capacity storage devices online.
Reddit Users Spot the Fraud
In the comments, the creator of the post shared that the drive shows up as a 19TB disk in Windows, but it freezes as soon as you try to use it. He recalled seeing a similar issue in a Linus Tech Tips video about USB sticks. Apparently, the small circuit board tricks Windows into thinking it’s a massive storage device, while there’s actually no usable storage space at all. This highlights the clever deception behind the scam, where the drive is just a hollow shell pretending to be something it’s not.
The reactions from users were clear: anyone who gets what appears to be a lot of storage for far too little money should be skeptical. However, when looking at the picture, especially the glue holding the plates in place, Reddit users – many of whom frequent spaces outside of the pious and virtuous EarlyGame community – began to think of other possibilities. This author only wonders why there's a single unassembled diode in the plastic casing.
Do you think you would fall for this scam, or are you too careful? Let us know in the comments!