Mystery Drive!

[Wakou]

I recently acquired a drive described a a 2Tb NVMe/M.2  drive, from a provincial bricks and mortar auction. (I paid only pennies for it!). It came in some very uniformative packaging.. On attaching it it did indeed show a capacity of 2Tb. The Windows Device Manager only shows it as a generic USB device, with no Mfr's id etc. I tested it with Crystal DiskMark and with another benchmark, and it is INCREDIBLY slow, 25Mb/s but seems otherwise legit. There seems to be NO WAY to open it to see what is inside! Any ideas anyone? Should I Dremel it open? The unit has a USB C interface. If I got a USB C > USB C cable would this be quicker? What is the easiest way to test/verify the capacity? Use DD and write random or zeroes?

[Wolly9102]

7 minutes ago, Wakou said:

I recently acquired a drive described a a 2Tb NVMe/M.2  drive, from a provincial bricks and mortar auction. (I paid only pennies for it!). It came in some very uniformative packaging.. On attaching it it did indeed show a capacity of 2Tb. The Windows Device Manager only shows it as a generic USB device, with no Mfr's id etc. I tested it with Crystal DiskMark and with another benchmark, and it is INCREDIBLY slow, 25Mb/s but seems otherwise legit. There seems to be NO WAY to open it to see what is inside! Any ideas anyone? Should I Dremel it open? The unit has a USB C interface. If I got a USB C > USB C cable would this be quicker? What is the easiest way to test/verify the capacity? Use DD and write random or zeroes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sound like one of these:

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

I bet it's just a tiny SD card inside (under 32 gigs) that it's writing over in a loop to spoof a "2 TB" capacity. (The pre-UHC "high speed" SD card standard topped out at 25 MB/sec.)

[Wolly9102]

11 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

I bet it's just a tiny SD card inside (under 32 gigs) that it's writing over in a loop to spoof a "2 TB" capacity. (The pre-UHC "high speed" SD card standard topped out at 25 MB/sec.)

 

 

36 minutes ago, Wakou said:

recently acquired a drive described a a 2Tb NVMe/M.2

This. Get rid of it if you value your data

[Wakou]

Thanks both! You were correct, it is a 32Gb USB drive, glued in to the portable enclosure and spoofed to look like 2Tb!
@Wolly9102 @Needfuldoer 

[FRD]

The worst thing is that these so called 2TB NVME SSDs often are on Amazon's top selling list in electronics in some manipulated way. Usually they don't have any reviews left and offered by new sellers. Because of these practices people may easily fall for it. They're about $100 for 2TB I believe.

I ever saw a post on another forum where someone bought one and debunked/exposed this product. It's just a 32GB (or smaller or bigger) flash chip with a USB-C attached to it, made to show 1TB or 2TB or any large amount on PC, but is not actually usable.

Like @Wakou proved above, it's a scam in every kind of way. Gladly you only paid pennies for it, as even paying close to $50 for one of these is a huge rip off.

 

(Post #999)