The price was the first clue: R1,789 for a 1TB SanDisk portable SSD, when MyBroadband says most 1TB drives now cost around R3,500 and this particular model sells for R4,000 to R5,000. That is about 60% below the going rate. MyBroadband bought one from a third-party seller on Makro’s online marketplace and reported on 28 September that the drive was a fake.
The publication was honest about why it bought: at that price, it could easily have been a genuine special. It was not.
What MyBroadband found
The packaging looked convincing at a glance and gave itself away on inspection. The box was unsealed and squashed, the SanDisk name was printed twice side by side at the bottom, and the box said the drive was made in Malaysia while the print on the drive said China. The model number on the box did not match the one on the drive. On the drive itself, the branding was printed on, where a genuine SanDisk drive from MyBroadband’s studio had an embedded metal inlay. The kit still came with a USB-C cable, a warranty booklet and all the right advertised specifications, including 1,050MB/s read and 1,000MB/s write speeds.
The tests were worse. Plugged into a PC, the drive reported 999GB, where a genuine 1TB drive typically shows around 931GB. H2testw, a free drive-testing tool, called it likely defective: only 29.8GB of a 49GB test file transferred correctly and 18.1GB was corrupted. A second tool, Validrive, found the highest valid region of storage at 31.7GB. Read speeds came in around 19MB/s and writes around 17.6MB/s, a fraction of what the box promised.
Inside, MyBroadband found a microSD card, presumably a 32GB one judging by the test results, wired to a low-cost Chipsbank CBM2199S controller chip, instead of the flash chips and controller of a real SSD. It also found a metal object glued inside the casing, marked with a 10 and the symbol Fe, which MyBroadband took to be a 10-gram iron weight added so the drive would feel heavier.
For a business, the dangerous part is that the drive accepts everything you send it. According to MyBroadband’s analysis, the controller records each file’s name and size, so Windows reports the files as saved, while only about 30GB of real data can be held. When MyBroadband copied its files back and tried to unzip them, the folders were empty. Used as a backup, a drive like this reports success and holds nothing.
What Makro and Massmart said
Massmart, which owns Makro, told MyBroadband: “We are actively reviewing the category of products that you have raised concerns about. Pending the outcome of this review, we will take the necessary action with the sellers concerned.” It added that third-party sellers are expected to meet its requirements, including accurate and complete product information, and that where it finds non-compliance, action ranges from correcting a listing to removing products or acting against the seller.
The listing had stayed live for several weeks through MyBroadband’s purchase and delivery, and was taken down after its enquiry. Makro approved the return and refund without giving any feedback. MyBroadband also reported other listings that looked suspect, such as an 8TB SSD priced at R479.
How to check a drive before it holds company data
Treat a price 60% below the field as a warning rather than a bargain. Before a new drive touches a machine that holds business data, test it on a spare computer: MyBroadband itself chose not to plug the drive into its own PC at first because of cybersecurity concerns. Write a test file that fills the drive’s stated capacity with a free tool such as H2testw, check the usable region with Validrive, and time a large copy. A gap between claimed and real capacity, or speeds a fraction of the advertised figure, means the drive goes back.
Keep the receipt, because the law gives you time. Section 56 of the Consumer Protection Act puts an implied warranty of quality on the producer or importer, the distributor and the retailer alike. Within six months of delivery, a consumer can return goods that fail the Act’s quality standards without penalty, and the supplier must, at the consumer’s direction, repair or replace them or refund the price. The Act does not cover a purchase by a company or other juristic person whose asset value or annual turnover is at or above a threshold set by the Minister, so a larger business should check its own contract terms instead.
Whether a marketplace operator counts as the retailer for a third-party seller’s goods was not addressed in MyBroadband’s reporting. That is a question for the National Consumer Commission, which enforces the Act.
What is not yet known
This was one purchase, tested by one publication. Massmart has not said how many listings or sellers are involved, or what vetting sits behind the marketplace. Counterfeit goods are one of the categories in the R84.6 billion a year illicit economy estimate we covered in South Africa’s illicit economy is estimated at R84.6 billion a year, and this drive is a reminder that they are not confined to street stalls: a fake with a warranty booklet and an official-looking box turned up on a major retailer’s online marketplace, priced to look like a sale.
