Fake hard drives from Amazon and others - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2019, 08:30:55 am
content: I have seen numerous threads involving fake hard drives. Here are two recent ones:https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/brand-new-wd-gold-2tb-running-slow.3515666/https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/seagate-display-wrong-hdd.3530622/#post-21344703Here is an older thread:https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35381

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2019, 08:58:58 am
content: Damn, haven't seen that yet. I guess RAM and CPUs are coming next

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 26, 2019, 09:13:23 pm
content: To add to the confusion, many WD drives are actually rebadged Hitachis, and some Hitachis are rebadged WDs. Earlier 3.5" Toshibas were also rebadged Hitachis.Even more confusing is that many of WD's "5400 RPM class" HDDs actually spin at 7200 RPM.A new twist to IntelliPower?https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=38333

author: magic
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2019, 07:09:31 am
content: I see that people are trying to estimate RPM from access latency, can't it be measured with just a microphone and spectrum analysis?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2019, 02:45:17 pm
content: Quote from: magic on October 27, 2019, 07:09:31 amThis is exactly what some have done in the thread fzabkar posted.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2019, 04:20:56 pm
content: Quote from: magic on October 27, 2019, 07:09:31 amMicrophone or accelerometer and spectrum analysis (e.g. FFT) should work. At 7200 RPM it could be tricky in the US as therecan be plenty of 120 Hz background.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2019, 09:01:07 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on October 27, 2019, 04:20:56 pmYou can assess the background noise on a dry run without spinning up the HDD.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 27, 2019, 09:03:06 pm
content: Quote from: magic on October 27, 2019, 07:09:31 amAn inconsistent latency tells you that something is wrong. An audio spectrum analysis confirms it.

author: Canis Dirus Leidy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2019, 06:00:14 am
content: Quote from: magic on October 26, 2019, 08:58:58 amBeen here, done that.Fake memory modules: bunch of RAM ICs (refurbished at best or taken from garbage bin at worst) with fake sticker.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2019, 12:24:31 pm
content: Quote from: Canis Dirus Leidy on October 28, 2019, 06:00:14 amJEDEC has the PCB layouts and everything freely available on their website so it's pretty easy to make your own DIMMs...Remarked CPUs with higher clock frequencies than they originally were have been around for many years, and there were even motherboards withfake cache.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2019, 09:14:03 pm
content: Quote from: amyk on October 28, 2019, 12:24:31 pmI encountered many of those fake cache examples.Notice this one:The empty innards of the two "write-back cache" chips can be exposed by levering off the top half of the package with a knife or scalpel. What is even funnier is that the two identical chips are bussed together with circular traces that don't go outside the "island". Moreover, if they were genuine RAMs, then the busses would be wired in parallel instead of connecting the opposite sides of the chips.

author: cigmas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2019, 09:38:04 pm
content: Omg thanks for the warning. I know about fake SD cards and thought that was bad enough. This is getting ridiculous.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 28, 2019, 09:46:56 pm
content: Seagate provides a "label validation" service:https://verify.seagate.com/verify/The labels of WD's drives have an undocumented "DCX" code which checks the model and serial numbers for consistency. I have deciphered all but one of the characters in this code and have written a tool that attempts to validate it.http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2153

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2019, 10:04:54 am
content: Quote from: fzabkar on October 28, 2019, 09:14:03 pmI bumped into those too, some of them were genuine boards that had socketed 'fake' chips, they were very authentic looking with the correct epoxy encapsulation but had no identifiable function in any of our IC testers and then there were the nasty, cheap ones with 'writeback' stamped into them, they were obviously fakes and were usually soldered in to the boards.The difference was that most of the boards with socketed fakes could be brought up to spec with a set of genuine cache chips and a BIOS replacement/reflash, the soldered ones were just wasted board space because even when you desoldered the fakes we could find no way to make the boards work with genuine chips, we drew out the schematic and found that the tracks around the cache chips were only there to make the board look pretty.One of our suppliers claimed the cache was implemented by using an area of system RAM so it was all OK, needless to say they got the boards returned, invoice payment refused and we stopped using them.

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 08, 2020, 07:16:34 pm
content: Another one, this time a Toshiba HDD relabelled as a WD:https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39567

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2020, 10:08:39 pm
content: Another one:https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40305

author: fzabkar
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2020, 08:14:40 pm
content: Another one:https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/seagate-hdd-showing-lower-rpm.3649914/#post-21990832