A fake external SSD is a drive whose firmware has been modified to report more capacity than its actual chip holds — for example, a 64GB chip that shows up as 2TB. Anything written past the real capacity gets discarded or overwrites older data. The files still look present in the folder, but their contents are corrupt. That is why the most important test happens right after delivery, before you trust the drive with anything important.
Before you buy
- Price far below market: treat anything under about 50% of the official price of a comparable drive as a warning, not a bargain.
- Suspicious seller: brand-new store, generic repeated reviews, bombastic claims with no official model number or warranty.
- Impossible specs: a matchbox-sized "16TB" or "32TB" drive for pennies, or speed claims that exceed the port itself (e.g. 1,000 MB/s over USB 2.0).
- Sloppy packaging: blurry print, spelling errors, tilted logos, re-glued hologram seals, no serial number.
After you have it
- Speed collapses after the first few gigabytes: fast at first, then falls off a cliff once the real capacity is exceeded.
- Files corrupt shortly after copying: photos that will not open, videos that stop midway, ZIP files that fail to extract.
- Official software does not recognize it: Samsung Magician, WD Dashboard, or CrystalDiskInfo shows a different model or firmware than the label. Check the serial number on the manufacturer's site too.
Test the real capacity
A quick Properties check proves nothing — Windows only shows what the controller reports. Use ValiDrive (free, Windows) for a fast random spot-check across the claimed range: green means verified, red means fake or damaged areas. For a definitive answer, run H2testw (Windows) or f3 (Linux/macOS), which write to the full claimed capacity and read everything back. It is slow on large drives, but pass means genuine and fail means fake or faulty.
I simulated this failure mode myself on my computer: I wrote 100 numbered 1MB blocks, as if to a 100MB drive, onto a 20MB image file with writes wrapping back to the start the way a fake controller does. Only 20 of the 100 blocks read back correctly — the first block even read back as block 80, overwritten. That is exactly how data dies on a fake SSD. (This was a simulation on an image file, not a test of a physical SSD.)
Also check health with CrystalDiskInfo (model, firmware, SMART Percentage Used) and speed with CrystalDiskMark using a large test size. Note: about 7% less displayed capacity than the box is normal — 1TB advertised shows as about 931 GiB — because manufacturers count in decimal and operating systems in binary. A huge gap, like a "2TB" drive showing 64GB, is the real red flag.
If you already bought one
Stop using it, copy out whatever still reads (verifying each file), screenshot your test results, and file a return/refund with the marketplace using the test evidence — not just "item not as described".
Read the full Indonesian guide with the complete checklist and step-by-step recovery plan: https://www.miftahulrizki.eu.org/2026/10/ciri-ciri-ssd-eksternal-palsu-7-tanda.html
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