Fake memory: Extra caution is now advised
During the Christmas season, counterfeit hardware often makes the rounds. The storage crisis makes fraud even more lucrative.
(Image: Andreas Wodrich / heise medien)
Anyone looking for RAM, SSDs, or HDDs for Christmas should take a very close look before and after purchasing. Various scams are still making the rounds. Due to the current shortage of storage and the associated high prices, counterfeit products are particularly lucrative.
We continue to receive reader emails about old, used hard drives that retailers are selling as new. In an extreme case, a reader bought a 4 TB HDD from Seagate from a commercial eBay seller. The item condition stated: "Stock clearance, zero hours, possible storage marks on the casing".
(Image:Â heise medien)
In reality, however, the hard drive had already run for over 52,000 hours – that's almost six years of continuous operation. This is revealed by the so-called Field Accessible Reliability Metrics (FARM), which Seagate hard drives output independently of the manipulable SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) values.
Current cases make it clear that hard drives with high hidden operating times continue to be found in the supply chains.
Exchange fraud with RAM
In the case of RAM, Videocardz reported recently on an extreme case: A reader ordered a DDR5 RAM kit from Adata via Amazon, but then received DDR2 sticks. These had stickers that were supposed to resemble the aluminum heatsink of the original. A simple metal plate was included in the package to increase the weight.
(Image:Â Videocardz)
More common is the exchange with real aluminum heatsinks: A buyer orders a current kit, removes the aluminum heatsink, inserts old RAM sticks – for example, from the DDR4 generation – returns the old sticks within the withdrawal period, and keeps the new sticks.
If a shop sells returned hardware as new and does not thoroughly check the product, the supposed DDR5 sticks can end up with another customer. DDR generations are not compatible with each other; the wrong version will not physically fit into the motherboard slots. Such cases repeatedly appear on Reddit as well.
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Check storage with software
In general, it is advisable to read out the data of new hardware using software tools. For HDDs and SSDs, these are programs that determine so-called SMART data. For example, there is CrystalDiskInfo. However, the values for HDDs can be faked, which is why additional tricks may be necessary.
For RAM, the common program CPU-Z can read out the RAM amount, among other things. There are also tools like Thaiphoon Burner, which reveal additional details such as the stored memory profiles. They can also partially read out the capacity of the soldered memory chips, as a further indication of authenticity. However, the specific mention of the chips is only an assumption based on the remaining specifications.
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