Let’s talk: Fake 1TB (or larger) USB Flash drives being sold on Amazon and other online retailers.

[i_was_here]

Slow performance has no correlation with whether a drive is legit or not. Write performance in particular tends to be low on cheap drives. For performance in USB stick format consider options such as the SanDisk USB Extreme Pro, Envoy Pro Mini, Kingston DataTraveler Max, or Corsair Voyager GTX.

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

Beware - Some USB drives are using a SD card instead of proper chips. It works, but this could lead to slower performance.

Edit - Meant to specify thumb drives that don’t lie about storage size are ok

[Tomo]

On 21/08/2024 at 07:18, Eternal Tempest said:

Beware - Some USB drives are using a SD card instead of proper chips.
It works, but this could lead to slower performance.

I've recently had a customer who bought a 1TB external 2.5" drive that was corrupting data. Smashed it open and it was just a 64GB SD Card soldered to a circuit board.

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

On 21/08/2024 at 07:31, Tomo said:

I've recently had a customer who bought a 1TB external 2.5" drive that was corrupting data. Smashed it open and it was just a 64GB SD Card soldered to a circuit board.

That is just crazy! it's hard to believe one can make money physically assembling "fake" SSDs to sell. Do they actually have an assemble line and are mass producing them?

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 21/08/2024 at 06:31, Tomo said:

I've recently had a customer who bought a 1TB external 2.5" drive that was corrupting data. Smashed it open and it was just a 64GB SD Card soldered to a circuit board.

I'm assuming it was some no-name brand?

[nekrosoft13]

On 21/08/2024 at 08:52, Good Bot, Bad Bot said:

That is just crazy! it's hard to believe one can make money physically assembling "fake" SSDs to sell. Do they actually have an assemble line and are mass producing them?

of course, is very common

[nekrosoft13]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Portable-SSD-16-TB-Large-Capacity-SSD-Hard-Drive-Storage-for-Computer-Laptop/5707366800?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101542673

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256460331777?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&var=556609703008&srsltid=AfmBOop7ArXTxPgcEsYDsAtteCn8I8cCojf34uKneJgoinYZoV4X7YwxSZc

https://www.walmart.com/ip/CHOU-Portable-SSD-Gen2-0-BLACK16TB-USB3-1-External-Hard-Drive-for-PC-Laptop/8155607424?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101271726

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Portable-Hard-Drive-8-TB-Large-Capacity-SSD-Hard-Drive-Storage-for-Computer-Laptop/7168255028?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101542673

https://www.walmart.com/ip/USB-Flash-Drive-2TB-USB-3-0-Flash-Stick-Suitable-for-PC-Laptop-high-Speed-Data-Storage-Drive-2000gb-Rotating-Design-Thumb-Drive-Black-2TB/5753457950?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101660279

 

Just few examples, DO NOT BUY

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 21/08/2024 at 11:40, nekrosoft13 said:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Portable-SSD-16-TB-Large-Capacity-SSD-Hard-Drive-Storage-for-Computer-Laptop/5707366800?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101542673

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256460331777?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkcid=28&var=556609703008&srsltid=AfmBOop7ArXTxPgcEsYDsAtteCn8I8cCojf34uKneJgoinYZoV4X7YwxSZc

https://www.walmart.com/ip/CHOU-Portable-SSD-Gen2-0-BLACK16TB-USB3-1-External-Hard-Drive-for-PC-Laptop/8155607424?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101271726

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Portable-Hard-Drive-8-TB-Large-Capacity-SSD-Hard-Drive-Storage-for-Computer-Laptop/7168255028?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101542673

https://www.walmart.com/ip/USB-Flash-Drive-2TB-USB-3-0-Flash-Stick-Suitable-for-PC-Laptop-high-Speed-Data-Storage-Drive-2000gb-Rotating-Design-Thumb-Drive-Black-2TB/5753457950?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=101660279

 

Just few examples, DO NOT BUY

The Generics are strong with those.

[nekrosoft13]

On 21/08/2024 at 11:46, Warwagon said:

The Generics are strong with those.

there are other examples that are less generic...

at my work a PLC engineer came to me to help him recover critical files that he backed up to a 2TB flash drive he bought from Amazon, it had samsung logo on it.

But it was a fake, inside there was a 32GB microSD card, that once you hit the limit of 32gb it starts overwriting, but it left the file allocation table, so it looked like the other files (long gone) where still there.

he got the "2TB drive" for $25 on "sale", you would expect an "engineer" to be a bit more knowledgeable than that.

[Good Bot, Bad Bot]

On 21/08/2024 at 12:40, nekrosoft13 said:

Just few examples, DO NOT BUY

Yeah, I would never think those were legit even for an off-brand Chinese brand. The one was almost 1TB per $1. LOL

[Tomo]

On 21/08/2024 at 14:54, Warwagon said:

I'm assuming it was some no-name brand?

It was, just a cheap caddy. I knew something wasn't right as soon as I saw it.

[Nemo288]

Wife brought home a swag stick on a keychain from work. Says "1000 GB" on it.

Knew it was fake just from that. Yep. Gibson (also use his fantastic DnsBench) says: 64GB.

Use it as a disposable video frame buffer. Not even very good at that.