Someone knows the trick. Fun anecdote: I bought a 8TB Seagate from a local retailer at discount because it was an open-box return. It looked fine until I plugged it in and the drive showed up without the usual setup.exe and the drive was partitioned oddly. Okay, go to resize the drive and only see 500GB of space. Defective drive? Maybe that's why it was returned. Then I pull up the SMART details. The drive reported over 10,000 hours on it, a history of read errors, and was manufactured by Toshiba.
I looked over every millimeter of that exterior and couldn't see the slightest mark of a pry tool or even a sticker being out of place. I'm impressed if they were able to open the case and reseal it that cleanly. Although I also theorize that someone is stealing empty cases from the factory that they assemble with "recycled" drives. Either way, it was a professional crime. Not like the lazy fraudsters who just put a literal brick in the box and hope the store employee doesn't look inside.
End of story, I got my money back without problem since the store manager knows me.
Did you tell them what you'd discovered? (If yes, what did they think of the situation? (Did you get any sense where the drive came from?))
Idle thought experiment: maybe the enclosures were cloned. (ie, the originals were 3D scanned + cleaned up + etc.) I wonder how much that would cost end-to-end.
> Idle thought experiment: maybe the enclosures were cloned. (ie, the originals were 3D scanned + cleaned up + etc.) I wonder how much that would cost end-to-end.
Do you think it's worth the effort of 3d printing, painting, assembling everything, etc just to swap your fake for one real HDD?
Like I said, I'm friends with the manager and he was the one who told me about nearby stores being hit with a box-of-bricks return.
Looking at the authentic model I eventually got, it's in three parts with the outer shell a glossy black and and insert that's slate colored with vent panels for passive cooling. And a Seagate logo inset that doubles as an power/activity light. The bottom has small rubber feet and the sticker with model and serial number on it. They didn't have another drive in stock to do a side-by-side comparison with, but I couldn't notice anything that would have tipped me off it was a fake. Even tried prying at the seams to see if it came apart any easier and it was held just as firmly as the real thing.
