Counterfeit Samsung USB HDD contains 128MB flash chips

The chaps at Neowin found pictures of a counterfeit external HDD that is being sold in China. This product was bought by a Russian customer who went over the Chinese border to purchase what appears to be a 500GB Samsung external hard drive at an unbelievably low price.

The enclosure didn't contain a hard drive though, inside was nothing more than a 128MB flash chip and two metal bolts to give the drive some weight. Interestingly, the flash controller was programmed to report a 500GB capacity and to copy files in a loop when it reached past 128MB.

On first glance, it appears to be a 500 GB Samsung external hard drive with a few typos on the case ("Complant" 480 Mbps). As the customer observes, his new drive does show up with a capacity of 500 gigabytes, and it does manage to hold a few small files. The problem is with copying anything large - the drive would hold only the last few minutes of a copied movie file, for instance.

So he took his "broken" hard drive to his local computer shop to have it checked out. Imagine how much of a laugh the techies had when they opened up the drive to find this.