Build Advice New build questions ?

[Richard1234]

There are several issues when you swap the PSU around;
1. PSU cables aren't long enough for to be routed from outside the PC to the inside.
2. Mains power cable socket would then be inside the PC case. How do you plan to route that inside the PC case?

ok, that important problem was beyond my visualisation and imagination!

3. PSU will exhaust all of it's air into PC case (exhaust vents are at the back, where fan control button is).

yes, you have convinced me the idea is a nonstarter!

25th June 2021 because there was a need. (Looked up my PC hardware purchase history.)

Between all 3 desktop PCs i have + including offline storage, the most i have, are 2.5" SSDs.

Skylake build:
2x M.2 NVMe SSDs (one of them is OS drive clone)
2x 2.5" SATA SSDs (data drive + data drive clone)

Haswell build:
1x M.2 NVMe SSD
2x 2.5" SATA SSDs (data drive + data drive clone)

AMD build
1x 2.5" SATA SSD

Offline storage;
1x 2.5" SATA SSD to house bootable Win7 of Skylake build (OS drive clone)
1x 2.5" SATA SSD to house bootable Win10 of Skylake build (OS drive clone)
1x 2.5" SATA SSD to house bootable Win7 of Haswell build (OS drive clone)
1x 2.5" SATA SSD to house bootable Win10 of Haswell build (OS drive clone)
4x 3.5" HDDs (WD10EZEX), two of them are data drive clones of Skylake build and other two are data drive clone of Haswell build

I have phased out the usage of 3.5" HDDs with my PCs. The ones that are remaining, are in the offline storage.
Skylake build can only have 2x M.2 NVMe SSDs, while Haswell build can have 1x M.2 NVMe SSD. AMD build has 0 support for M.2 drives. But all PCs can support 6x 2.5" SSDs or 6x 3.5" HDDs.

Compared to 3.5" HDD, 2.5" SSD is much smaller, weighs a lot less, is far more durable and reliable and doesn't output any audible noise either. Also, much faster read/write than HDD. Price wise, 2.5" SSDs are quite cheap.

64TB? You got scammed.

Don't tell me that you bought this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa4mZcoc0w4

its not that one, but is a thinner version, I have watched the vid, I will need to do my own verification if its a scam. I dont just blindly trust what I see on the internet.

that vid could just dismantle one and insert some junk and pretend its the item.

anything can be a scam, a scam busting vid itself can be a scam, I have to do my own verification.


the question is why have both Norton and Windows 10 Computer Management decided it is 64TB?

maybe they hacked the query commands to announce exaggerated size.

Well, they are. Only diff is that PRIME TX-1600 ATX 3.0 has the two 16-pin 12VHPWR connectors, which would've been more convenient to use to power your GPU, rather than using the adapter. But other than that, both PSUs are essentially identical.

the supplied cable at the other end is the 12VHPWR plug, so maybe its just a rewiring problem?

It just makes me wonder, how come you bought PRIME TX-1600 while i talked about PRIME TX-1600 ATX 3.0. I even linked the ATX 3.0 variant.

My composed build in your old topic:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...-windows-version.3831325/page-4#post-23191322

if I remember rightly, there were major delays from the link, so I got it on ebay instead

I blame Seasonic for having bad naming, quality naming is idiot proof, where there is absolutely no way you can misidentify,

but if the naming is TX-1600 and TX-1600 ATX3.0 that is STUPID naming, as I would assume the ATX3.0 is just further description.

a better naming would be eg TX-1600, TX-1603, or TX-1630.

when you say on the phone letters of the alphabet eg alpha tango foxtrot for ATF, they carefully chose words which cannot be misheard.

people knew how to avoid confusion last century, there is no excuse for these ridiculous confusing names.

same way the electronics needs robust design, the name itself needs robust design, this one is flimsy naming.

But what is done is done. No point to return the PSU and get the ATX 3.0 one. This one works just as fine.

I see an advantage to this one, that much more options for how to connect the cable.

 

[35below0]

the question is why have both Norton and Windows 10 Computer Management decided it is 64TB?

maybe they hacked the query commands to announce exaggerated size.

Yes, the MicroSD card is formatted in such a way as to report it's size as 64Tb. This is not exactly easy to do, but it can be done.

And whether it's a scam or not can be put to rest easily. The only commercially available 64Tb drive is a 2.5" SSD unit that sells for >$10,000.
If you paid ~$50, you got a scam.

A portable 64Tb drive doesn't exist. So you've certainly fallen for it. And you aren't the only one.

 

[USAFRet]

the question is why have both Norton and Windows 10 Computer Management decided it is 64TB?

The firmware has been altered to report as 64TB.

You can test the actual size yourself.
Copy 1 or 2TB actual data to it.
It will happily report that it is doing it.

Then, copy that 2TB data back out to some other drive.
Is it all there?

For a real "64TB" drive, add a few zeros to your "2 digit" cost.
Seriously.

Or, you can continue to believe it is 64TB.
Then, when your data that you've copied to it is lost, you can come back here, wanting to know how to recover (you can't)

 

[35below0]

The firmware has been altered to report as 64TB.

You can test the actual size yourself.
Copy 1 or 2TB actual data to it.
It will happily report that it is doing it.

Then, copy that 2TB data back out to some other drive.
Is it all there?

|I think simply re-rofmatting the drive will reveal it's true size. 64Gb in the case of the video linked previously.

 

[Richard1234]

And all that partitioning on your Disk 0 and Disk 1 is wasteful.

the 226.5G on disk0 is reserved in case I install Windows 11!

the leftmost 97.65GB is Windows XP, the next partition is Windows 10,
the next one I am using for temporary storage and is in case I install Linux,

where I only use Linux for some technical things, so I dont need a huge amount of space,
so far in fact I just use the Linux DVD with "try without installing" as this gives me what I want.

win 10 currently is 122G capacity, 34.47 free, I think this is healthy, because installs can devour a lot of storage, and are best done to the system drive.


the free space on Disk1 is so there is free space to add further downloads and files.

the first volume has a directory where I download things like software install binaries, and also CD iso files for CDs of hardware. the 2nd volume is where I do my main downloads, 166 capacity, 40 free.

I keep things in different partititions, because some partitions are more valuable, where I can then just do a sector by sector backup of the entire volume. rather than a file based backup.

sector by sector is better as that will also capture any deleted files, for potential future undeletes. if you just backup at the file level, you lose the deleted files!


if the free space were 1% that would be a big problem, as I might download some stuff and then disk full.

the 64T could be a scam, I have to do my own verification, I cant just blindly believe a Youtube video. its very easy to fake a scam busting. it is in the category of "too good to be true", but 2T drives are available, 2T to 64T isnt completely unbelievable.

I'll try shunting some huge sector by sector backups of drives that I have and see what happens.

 

[USAFRet]

|I think simply re-rofmatting the drive will reveal it's true size. 64Gb in the case of the video linked previously.

If the firmware on the PCB is reporting 64TB, reformatting the "drive" may still show 64TB.

 

[Richard1234]

There is that one ExaDrive mentioned in the video Aeacus linked. As it sells for $10,000+ it's out of reach of most users. And that's what it would take to have a 64Tb SSD.

whilst I agree it probably is a scam, that $10000 is probably mostly profit!

the raw materials will just be some sand for the silicon, and a few minerals.

the expensive thing is the manufacturing equipment, the actual item is probably quite cheap.

 

[Richard1234]

If the firmware on the PCB is reporting 64TB, reformatting the "drive" may still show 64TB.

there are some warnings about not reformatting various ways, I'll test initially conformant with their advice, before flouting their advice!

 

[USAFRet]

the 64T could be a scam, I have to do my own verification, I cant just blindly believe a Youtube video. its very easy to fake a scam busting. it is in the category of "too good to be true", but 2T drives are available, 2T to 64T isnt completely unbelievable.

We're not asking you to believe a single utube video.

Please....do your own independent testing.
Let us know how it goes.

 

[DSzymborski]

And yes, a 64 TB flash drive that you got for $50 *is* totally unbelievable.

It's like someone claiming to be 2,000 years old and were born on Mars and then saying it's possible because people did exist 2,000 years ago and Mars is a place. It's utterly preposterous.

I'll invoke the Sagan standard here.

 

[35below0]

And yes, a 64 TB flash drive that you got for $50 *is* totally unbelievable.

It's like someone claiming to be 2,000 years old and were born on Mars and then saying it's possible because people did exist 2,000 years ago and Mars is a place. It's utterly preposterous.

I'll invoke the Sagan standard here.

It's easy to get fooled. Without checking i could believe a huge drive/card.

The fact there are no USB 64Tb drives is the reddest flag.
SSDs and HDDs do not reach 64Tb, which is another red flag.
If say, Western Digital sold a 64Tb USB drive for $250, i could accept a no-brand version for $50. But now that i know that no manufacturer*, reputable or not, is selling a HDD, SSD, or USB that has a 64Tb capacity, i can most easily accept that this thing is a scam. It would be a miracle if it wasn't.

*The solitary ExaDrive is the exception, but it is not a normal, consumer unit.

 

[USAFRet]

It's easy to get fooled. Without checking i could believe a huge drive/card.

We've had several users here who have bought a similar scam drive.

After it proves to be only 32 or 64GB, asking about how to "unlock" the actual "16TB" or whatever.

You can't, because it does not exist.

 

[Aeacus]

yes it is 64TB, I have verified this just now, both Norton and Windows "Computer Management" panel on Win10 have verified this, Norton says it is 61TB, and Computer Management says it is 62499.98GB,

and the sting is it cost a 2 digit amount, its cheaper than the 2T small Samsung drive I bought about a year ago!

You got scammed. Really.

1st red flag is it being that cheap.
2nd red flag is it being so small (dimensions wise).

Scammers can rewrite the firmware of a drive, making it to look like 64TB within the OS. But if you actually are going to write data on it, you'll see how much it actually is able to contain. It containing 64TB is a myth, especially at that price point. Maybe 1TB IF lucky.

Currently, the highest capacity SSD is 100TB, but it isn't 2.5" but instead 3.5" in size and will cost $40.000 (£31.419).
There is 64TB SSD, but that one is also 3.5" in size and costs $10.900 (£8561).
Highest capacity HDD is 30TB.

Further reading: https://www.techradar.com/best/large-hard-drives-and-ssds

While on consumer market, biggest SSD, M.2 NVMe, is 8TB. If SSD is 2.5" then 16TB.
Portable USB drive biggest capacity currently is 2TB.

the 64T could be a scam, I have to do my own verification, I cant just blindly believe a Youtube video. its very easy to fake a scam busting. it is in the category of "too good to be true", but 2T drives are available, 2T to 64T isnt completely unbelievable.

Would you kindly explain, how your portable USB drive can be 64TB while costing less than £100?

Or lets put it another way around, IF the sub-£100 64TB drive is reality, everyone would be buying it and only using it. While Samsung, Western Digital, Crucial, Teamgroup and all other SSD/HDD manufacturers would go bankrupt, since NONE of the others are capable of producing such high capacity drives with so low cost.

the supplied cable at the other end is the 12VHPWR plug, so maybe its just a rewiring problem?

Yes.

I blame Seasonic for having bad naming, quality naming is idiot proof, where there is absolutely no way you can misidentify,

but if the naming is TX-1600 and TX-1600 ATX3.0 that is STUPID naming, as I would assume the ATX3.0 is just further description.

a better naming would be eg TX-1600, TX-1603, or TX-1630.

Seasonic naming is actually good one. Used to be more complex.

This is how it is currently,
link: https://seasonic.com/oneseasonic

E.g my PSUs with old naming scheme are:
Seasonic PRIME 650 80+ Titanium
Seasonic PRIME Ultra 650 80+ Titanium
Seasonic Focus+ 550 80+ Platinum

But with new naming scheme, it is:
Seasonic PRIME TX-650
Seasonic PRIME TX-650
Seasonic Focus PX-550

Much shorter and if you know what the letters and numbers mean, also easier to understand.

ATX 3.0 is another revision of ATX PSU standard.
Explained here what it is: https://seasonic.com/atx-3-0-standard

And PSUs are currently in the crossover period, since ATX 3.0 is relatively new. So, all PSUs that meet ATX 3.0 standard, have to have "ATX 3.0" in their name. So that people know if they are getting older revision (e.g ATX 2.2 or ATX 2.5) or newer revision (ATX 3.0) PSU. And with this, revision name can't be masked into product name, since that will confuse people even more.

E.g with cars, there is universal lettering of AWD. None of the car manufacturers aren't going to mask it in the product name. E.g Nissan Bawdy and Nissan Rowdy. No-one is going to figure out that Bawdy is all-wheel drive because "AWD" is masked into the model name. Everyone would still think that Bawdy is just a model name. So, for not to confuse people, car manufacturer would state the names as: Nissan Bawdy AWD and Nissan Rowdy FWD.

 

[Richard1234]

If the firmware on the PCB is reporting 64TB, reformatting the "drive" may still show 64TB.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

also if the reformatting shows X Gigabytes that also doesnt prove anything! as it could be a limit of the PC, eg this one is from 2010, and with XP cannot handle drives above 4T, it worked with one, failed with others, seems to work with 2T.

I am putting it to the test, by writing a small program with the command line:

command filepath number_of_files size1 size2 size3 .....

where what it does is create number_of_files files with filename filepath appended with 00000001, 00000002 etc, and of size size1 x size2 x size 3 .....

where it creates one memory buffer of size size1 x size2 x ... and writes that as one write action.

I then booted my windows 11 HP laptop from a year ago with Linux Mint via a Samsung bluray writer USB drive, using the try without installing option.

after a lot of effort I got the C compiler installed, which is via the command

apt install build-essential --fix-missing

with current directory the allegedly 64T SSD, which is called SSD: via the command

cd /media/mint/SSD/


I made a subdirectory called files/ via

mkdir files


I then compiled the program on Linux Mint on this allegedly 64T SSD and ran it thus:
./create_file_size ./files/file 65536 1024 1024 1024

which will allocate a 1 GB memory buffer, (where I use the notation G for 1024 x 1024 x 1024 and g for 1000 x 1000 x 1000, to avoid ambiguity with metric notation)

and then create file after file, attempting to create
SSD:files/file00000001 SSD:files/file00000002 ... SSD:files/file00065536

I started this approx 2:35am last night, and right now at 13:21 it is on the 374th one, ie 374 GigaBytes so far, and it hasnt finished,

with the Linux Mint file explorer, I can click on the latest one eg file00000374

and the filesize indicator whizzes upwards continually.

when I checked in the last hour, I calculated it is creating a gigabyte file every 2 minutes.

anyway, so far the jury is out!

The fact there are no USB 64Tb drives is the reddest flag.
SSDs and HDDs do not reach 64Tb, which is another red flag.
If say, Western Digital sold a 64Tb USB drive for $250, i could accept a no-brand version for $50. But now that i know that no manufacturer*, reputable or not, is selling a HDD, SSD, or USB that has a 64Tb capacity, i can most easily accept that this thing is a scam. It would be a miracle if it wasn't.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

ordinarily I would agree, but this is China, and China's flagship Alibaba,
where with China I have seen them outperform the big names!

part of the reason firms like Maplins went bankrupt is online you can buy chinese versions of things at a fraction of the price.

in 2013 I got some Mitsubishi air conditioning units. then eventually one went kaput, and the repair firm said they can either try to repair or install their own ones. but their ones were from China, called Midea. Mitsubishis not an option.

I looked on internet comparison sites, and they had the big name ones, eg Mitsubishi, then in small print "there are other firms eg Midea".

I got the Mideas and they leave the japanese ones standing in the dust!

they are A+++ rated for this region of britain, A++ for more northerly regions and much of europe, not graded for far north zones of europe: A++ for Denmark, but not graded for Norway + Sweden, they have a breezeless option where once the temperature is reached they go to a really minimal almost silent mode. these ones are called Midea Bree

they made the Mitsubishis look like flimsy junk

also the Mideas cover a much bigger temperature range 16 to 30, the Mitsubishis only went down to 18, as they are junked I dont recall their top temperature. both can be used for heating also.

the firm who installed them are a major regional firm called Bartorelli,

https://www.bartorelli.co.uk/

who do commercial air conditioning and refrigeration, with a fleet of repair vans, they know what works, they wont use some junk. They have I think a 10 year guarantee provided serviced each year, been in use a few years without any problem.

so your argument is also not proper logic, chinese stuff regularly is much cheaper and much better than the big names.

 

[USAFRet]

anyway, so far the jury is out!

Sorry, but your script is useless.

That drive and its modified firmware will happily report it is actually copying whatever data you're trying to write to it.

What it is actually doing is simply writing new, and overwriting old.


Again...copy a few TB to this "64TB" drive.
Then, copy that data back out to some other drive.
Is it all there?

 

[Richard1234]

And yes, a 64 TB flash drive that you got for $50 *is* totally unbelievable.

It's like someone claiming to be 2,000 years old and were born on Mars and then saying it's possible because people did exist 2,000 years ago and Mars is a place. It's utterly preposterous.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

can be done theoretically! eg set up a space station on mars, send a pregnant woman there, then a child is born, put the child in a spaceship at near the speed of light, 2000 years whizz by in say 10 years of spaceship time, with the spaceship landing on earth in 4024AD, the 10 year old child gets off and says they are 2000 years old and were born on Mars! and it is all factually correct.

would cost a huge amount of money to arrange, but is possible via Einstein's theory of special relativity.

as some advert says "believe in impossible"!

arranging it for 2000 years ago maybe not possible, would require time travel backwards in time, which I personally think isnt possible. but timetravel forwards in time can be done via Einstein.

you'd have to send the pregnant woman 2000 years ago on Mars, the child is born, then 10 years later transport them to Earth and now.

the 2nd coming of Christ would be someone alleging to have been born some 2000 years ago!

 

[Richard1234]

Sorry, but your script is useless.

That drive and its modified firmware will happily report it is actually copying whatever data you're trying to write to it.

What it is actually doing is simply writing new, and overwriting old.

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

currently it writes 1 GB of zeros which I can check. the file icons are all appearing on the Linux Mint file explorer window.

I can modify it to say write the filenumber or even filename at the start or end of each file, that can be verified. byte by byte verifying would be severely time consuming.

filling the entire 1G with new data for each file would slow down things.

Again...copy a few TB to this "64TB" drive.
Then, copy that data back out to some other drive.
Is it all there?

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

the problem is a few TB would only verify a few TB, eg maybe the drive is just 2T,

creating 65536 1Gig files does test something. it is taking about 2 minutes to write 1 Gigabyte, so 2T would take some 2000 minutes, which is 33 hours. if that succeeds, then what?

Linux File explorer originally was saying 67T available, and is now saying 66.6T available, where it is now on the 392nd one, so it is at least consistent!

 

[USAFRet]

So far, 374GB written?

Can you go and retrieve the contents of your ...001 and ...002 files?

the problem is a few TB would only verify a few TB, eg maybe the drive is just 2T,

A real 2TB flash drive costs more than $50.


I'm not the one you have to convince. I know this is fake.
It is YOUR data that will be living on this fake drive.

Here's a thought....pop that case open, and show us a pic of the inside.

 

[Aeacus]

Here's a thought....pop that case open, and show us a pic of the inside.

I'd also like to know how the 64TB looks inside.

 

[Richard1234]

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

So far, 374GB written?

Can you go and retrieve the contents of your ...001 and ...002 files?

I will do that later! as its a bit fiddly doing anything on this HP spectre laptop, the Linux text editor keeps deleting swathes of the source file unrequested. This laptop was a big mistake, but it is Win11 with a lot of memory, and the latest technology.

but what I have done is halt it after 405 of 1GB files done, deleted the in progress #406,

and modified the software so it now prints the filename at the very start and the very end of each file.

that at least is a consistency check.

have restarted it where the files are now called SSD:files/further00000001 etc.
right now it is on the 6th new file. with the original 405 files still left in place.

where at the start of the 4th file it should put the characters "./files/further00000004" and right at the end also, both null terminated.

now if a drive had inbuilt compression it could have less than it seems, and these files currently would be very compressible as the main contents are repeated binary 0's (ie not ascii 0's).

I'll leave it for maybe a further day, then I'll retrieve some specific files to study.

I will also reboot the Linux Mint DVD just in case it is Linux's assessment, rather than the drive's!

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

A real 2TB flash drive costs more than $50.


I'm not the one you have to convince. I know this is fake.
It is YOUR data that will be living on this fake drive.

Here's a thought....pop that case open, and show us a pic of the inside.

I will try the reversible tests first! that way I could get a refund! the case looks unopenable, I may need to hacksaw or use a mallet.

 

[USAFRet]

I will try the reversible tests first! that way I could get a refund! the case looks unopenable, I may need to hacksaw or use a mallet.

Can you post the link where you bought this thing?

 

[Richard1234]

You got scammed. Really.

probably, but "innocent until proven guilty"

Spoiler: expand for off topic on the drive deal not being credible

1st red flag is it being that cheap.
2nd red flag is it being so small (dimensions wise).

Scammers can rewrite the firmware of a drive, making it to look like 64TB within the OS. But if you actually are going to write data on it, you'll see how much it actually is able to contain. It containing 64TB is a myth, especially at that price point. Maybe 1TB IF lucky.

Currently, the highest capacity SSD is 100TB, but it isn't 2.5" but instead 3.5" in size and will cost $40.000 (£31.419).
There is 64TB SSD, but that one is also 3.5" in size and costs $10.900 (£8561).
Highest capacity HDD is 30TB.

Further reading: https://www.techradar.com/best/large-hard-drives-and-ssds

While on consumer market, biggest SSD, M.2 NVMe, is 8TB. If SSD is 2.5" then 16TB.
Portable USB drive biggest capacity currently is 2TB.


Would you kindly explain, how your portable USB drive can be 64TB while costing less than £100?

I agree with all that, but this is China, so I dont apply the usual credibility tests. I agree 100% it is not credible, but I have to test it myself, China has a habit of producing much cheaper much better technology.

the testing so far has only shown that the drive is relatively slow, 1 Gig per 2 minutes.

Or lets put it another way around, IF the sub-£100 64TB drive is reality, everyone would be buying it and only using it. While Samsung, Western Digital, Crucial, Teamgroup and all other SSD/HDD manufacturers would go bankrupt, since NONE of the others are capable of producing such high capacity drives with so low cost.


Yes.


Seasonic naming is actually good one. Used to be more complex.

This is how it is currently,
link: https://seasonic.com/oneseasonic

E.g my PSUs with old naming scheme are:
Seasonic PRIME 650 80+ Titanium
Seasonic PRIME Ultra 650 80+ Titanium
Seasonic Focus+ 550 80+ Platinum

But with new naming scheme, it is:
Seasonic PRIME TX-650
Seasonic PRIME TX-650
Seasonic Focus PX-550

Much shorter and if you know what the letters and numbers mean, also easier to understand.

ATX 3.0 is another revision of ATX PSU standard.
Explained here what it is: https://seasonic.com/atx-3-0-standard

And PSUs are currently in the crossover period, since ATX 3.0 is relatively new. So, all PSUs that meet ATX 3.0 standard, have to have "ATX 3.0" in their name. So that people know if they are getting older revision (e.g ATX 2.2 or ATX 2.5) or newer revision (ATX 3.0) PSU. And with this, revision name can't be masked into product name, since that will confuse people even more.

they can just call it the RT 1630 ATX 3.0, then they put the ATX 3.0 in the title, but doubly disambiguate with a modification of the model name. eg with Motorola, the first one was the 68000 because it had 68000 transistors, but then the later ones were 68010, 68020, 68030, 68040, 68060

I have a doctorate in maths and a degree in computer science, if I made a mistake then I think the problem is with the naming not with me!

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments on naming

E.g with cars, there is universal lettering of AWD. None of the car manufacturers aren't going to mask it in the product name. E.g Nissan Bawdy and Nissan Rowdy. No-one is going to figure out that Bawdy is all-wheel drive because "AWD" is masked into the model name. Everyone would still think that Bawdy is just a model name. So, for not to confuse people, car manufacturer would state the names as: Nissan Bawdy AWD and Nissan Rowdy FWD.

the AWD should be a qualifier not part of the name!

just because 99% or even 100% of manufacturers do things a certain way doesnt mean its ok!

truth and wisdom are not a democracy! the ENTIRE world can be wrong!
eg in 1850, every scientist on earth thought time was absolute, everyone in the world was wrong!

hardware manufacturers are notorious for being poor communicators and user unfriendly design.

but I am from the software side, where its all about optimal communication and user friendliness, if you have a jungle of source code, it would become unmanageable if you named the bits the way hardware is named!
confusing naming leads to bugs. good naming requires simplicity, clarity, accuracy, and to be idiot proof where it would be work to misidentify. in particular for commercial things, you need to betatest the naming whether it is confusing.

 

[Richard1234]

Can you post the link where you bought this thing?

Spoiler: expand for off topic comments

I tried to at Alibaba, and it now says "page not found"!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006629726970.html?

progress report: I left it running till today, creating 405 files of 1GB, then a further 730 such with the filename at start and finish of each file of 0's, so now more than 1TB. halted this, then rebooted to Windows 11, the files all show on Windows 11 file explorer, with correct sizes and datestamps.

but when I tried to copy some to another drive, I got error messages!

and unusually the error messages were about the destination drive, but that is a 2T Samsung Portable SSD T7 drive, which has plenty of unused storage.

the 64T drive vanished at some point, I detached and reattached it and it reappeared, showing the files with correct sizes and datestamps again!

also the source file for the program to create the files which was on the SSD, and which was fine there, now also cannot be viewed or copied.

it is thus looking more like a scam. I have some disk salvage software, which I will try later, as that should be difficult to fool. I vaguely remember it cannot salvage flash drives, but I will see what happens.

if it is a scam, it is quite an elaborate scam.

If I am convinced its a scam, I wont break it open but will try to action a refund, as it was $23.97

once you know for sure something is a scam, its best to not participate any further.

if it is a scam, legally this is fraud, which is civil law, where the police wont help but you have to go to court.

in the UK you can go to jail for fraud by false representation, the law on this is covered by the Fraud Act 2006, at this URL:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/section/2

the full list of all forms of recognised fraud:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/contents

the catch is that for a proper court case the liability needs to be at least £25000. thus for a $23.97 fraud the only way to punish the person is via a class action lawsuit, where N complainants act as a group where
N x $23.97 > £25000.

also for a successful prosecution you have to show the plaintiff knowingly misrepresented, and that it wasnt a mistake or in ignorance etc. this is clause (2)(b) of the first of the 2 URLs.

note that fraud includes telling the truth if it is misleading, see (2)(a)
"a representation is false if it is untrue OR MISLEADING and" "(2)(b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue OR MISLEADING."

where I have capitalised the misleading aspect which includes true and misleading.

eg if I resold the drive without checking, that wouldnt be fraud, as I wasnt aware it was fraudulent, where I am reselling it "in good faith".

for this particular case, if you complain to Alibaba that it is fraudulent, they now know there is a potential problem, and would only be liable if they kept the advert up. now they could be conspiring to defraud, where they pretend they dont know it is fraudulent, which is a serious offence, but this requires investigation by the authorities eg the FBI in the US. an example of a fraud bust by the FBI was college admittance "by the side door" in the US:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyd7w2kC7kk



in the UK, for a liability up to £10000, you have to go to the "small claims court", and best you can do is get a refund, most firms give a refund out of court, as otherwise they are forced to attend the small claims court where the complainant lives, and its a false economy for them to even win the case.

as a result, fraudsters generally keep their fraud below 10000. for any deal above 25000 you need to bring in a solicitor, because if he gives wrong advice you can claim any liability on his professional indemnity insurance. if his advice was correct and you lost money, then you cant claim. a solicitor will also know all the things which can go wrong, eg for house deals you need a conveyancing lawyer, where they check all the things which can go wrong, eg the person doesnt own the house they are trying to sell you! The justice system knows everything that can go wrong because these are brought to them as lawsuits.

I need to be careful that this week I dont have much time as 2 major repairworks on Thursday and Friday, Thursday I am having 2 diagnostics on my car for 2 problems, and then also the MOT and service, where I will spend the day at the nearby mall whilst they work on the car. Today I have to do a shopping trek as I have run out of too many things.

frauds always happen when I have limited time!

I will retry accessing the disk variously, eg from Linux Mint, and beyond that the disk salvage, if all that fails, I will action a refund.

I need to start on assessing the breadboarding, so I will minimise the assessment of the allegedly 64T SSD!

 

[USAFRet]

These fake drives have been around for years.

It is relatively easy to create. And little legal downside for the creators.
You in the UK bringing a lawsuit to an entity in China isn't going to fly very far. No matter what the monetary amount.

Similar to this?
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256806516237255.html

 

[Aeacus]

if it is a scam, it is quite an elaborate scam.

If I am convinced its a scam, I wont break it open but will try to action a refund, as it was $23.97

With storage drive scams, there is nothing elaborate. Just take any random small microSD card, change the firmware to show whatever you like it to show, construct PCB for it that leads to USB type-A or type-C and house all of it in cheap plastic/metal casing. Voila, you have small 64TB drive. And also drop the price low, so that people are more likely to buy $25 drive than rather e.g $100 drive.

As long as there are people who believe that they got "great deal" since it was cheap with loads of capacity - there is market for such fake drives. If everybody would be informed about those fake drives and no-one isn't buying them, then scammers wouldn't make them in the first place.

Now, what is elaborate scam, is selling GPU without GPU die in it. And not some mid-tier one, but RTX 4090.
Article: https://wccftech.com/scammers-selling-gpu-memory-less-graphics-cards-china-cases-reported-rtx-4090/