- Nearly 700 counterfeit Seagate hard drives were seized in a major Malaysian raid
- Counterfeiters converted desktop HDDs into fake surveillance drives for profit
- Thousands of dollars were generated monthly through counterfeit hard drive sales
A large-scale raid in Malaysia has revealed the extent of manipulation in the hard drive market.
Seagate, working alongside the Ministry of Domestic Trade, traced suspicious online offers to a warehouse near Kuala Lumpur.
The raid uncovered a counterfeiting workshop that not only handled its own hard drives but also those from Western Digital and Toshiba.
Discovery of altered storage devices
This is not the first time old Seagate HDDs have been modified and sold as new. The Chia cryptocurrency case and other reports show Seagate drives are susceptible to counterfeiting.
In this latest case, nearly 700 Seagate units, some with capacities reaching 18TB, were seized.
Evidence suggests that devices were taken from the secondary market, scrubbed clean, fitted with new labels, and then sold as though they were fresh from the factory.
A striking case involved a desktop HDD being converted into a so-called “new” surveillance HDD, highlighting the deceptive practices being used.
The operation came to light when a sales manager noticed unusually low prices on e-commerce sites such as Lazada and Shopee.
Further investigation showed that the fraudsters reset SMART values to mask the age and use of the drives.
Reports indicate that the sales volume was large, with thousands of US dollars being generated each month.
Many of these products were listed as high-capacity options, making them attractive to customers seeking affordable storage, whether in desktop systems, portable HDD setups, or NAS HDD configurations.
Seagate believes the used equipment may have originated in China, although tracing the precise supply chain remains difficult.
The challenge now lies in finding out how large the network is and who is ultimately responsible for channeling used parts into counterfeit goods.
The raid demonstrates that organized groups are capable of reshaping the appearance of drives so effectively that unsuspecting buyers may only realize the problem once failures occur.
In response, Seagate has strengthened its partner program, demanding that distributors commit to sourcing exclusively from authorized suppliers.
Global Trade Screening is being emphasized as a mechanism to block purchases from companies that appear on sanctions lists.
These steps are designed to reduce the chances of counterfeit drives entering legitimate markets, although it remains to be seen whether this will make a lasting difference.
The discovery is not isolated. Other brands have been affected, as shown by counterfeit UnionSine external devices circulating on Amazon’s marketplace without effective intervention.
Despite alerts, sales continued, and this shows how porous the global distribution chain has become.
For buyers, the risks associated with unusually cheap listings remain, and unless enforcement intensifies, counterfeit devices may continue to slip through unchecked channels.
Via computerbase (originally in German)