Ordered three 32 TB drives — got only microSD cards glued inside

A Reddit user under the nickname FishBrain208 shared a cautionary tale about buying three external drives, each advertised as 32 TB. The devices were purchased by a colleague, but none of them worked when connected to a computer. Upon opening the casings, the buyers found no hard drives or SSDs inside — just small circuit boards with microSD cards attached using hot glue.

The name of the online store and the price paid were not disclosed. However, the fact that the buyer ordered three units at once strongly suggests the cost was far below the market price for genuine 32 TB drives.

This is not the first time such counterfeit storage devices have appeared on the market. Scammers often use cheap memory cards or USB flash drives with modified controller firmware. A computer may report the full advertised capacity — several or even tens of terabytes — but the actual storage space is much smaller. When a user tries to write data beyond the real limit, the files become corrupted or get overwritten, making the drive effectively useless for anything beyond a small amount of data.

The story serves as a reminder that deals that seem too good to be true often are. While the victim in this case did not reveal where exactly the drives were ordered, similar scams have been reported on various online marketplaces, especially those with little oversight over third-party sellers. The best way to avoid such fraud is to buy storage from reputable brands and official retailers, and to test any new drive immediately with a tool that verifies real capacity.