[Gllug] OT: Warning - new WD portable drives!

[general_email at technicalbloke.com]

On 09/06/11 08:30, Tethys wrote:
> "general_email at technicalbloke.com" writes:
>
>> It turns out the drive inside does not have SATA connectors at all, instead
>> (and worryingly) it has USB3 incorporated directly into the controller
>> board! This prevents the drives SMART data being read (which might have
>> been very helpful to my client a few weeks back!) and means that if you
>> do have trouble with the drive you can't extract it and connect it
>> directly into another PC to run diagnosis and recovery tools against.
> It could be worse...
>
> http://www.reghardware.com/2011/04/11/russian_duped_by_chinese_ssd_scammers/
>
> Tet
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Brilliant! There are actually guides for sale on ebay on how to avoid
being duped into buying fake high capacity USB drives - on ebay. There
is also software on sale there can diagnose if the flash memory you
bought off ebay is fake and software that can "fix" the fake flash
memory you bought off ebay i.e. restore it's native capacity and stop
the overwriting behaviour. The moral of the story, just don't buy flash
drives from outside the UK! I have to say though, I'm still very happy
with the cheap kingspec SSD I bought from Hong Kong a year or so back,
looking at the above post though I think I was very lucky there!

Roger
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