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https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/07/failed_usb_sticks/
The report, from German data recovery company CBL, concluded that NAND chips from reputable manufacturers such as Hynix, Sandisk, or Samsung that had failed quality control were being resold and repurposed. While still working, the chips' storage capacity is reduced.
"When we opened defective USB sticks last year, we found an alarming number of inferior memory chips with reduced capacity and the manufacturer's logo removed from the chip. Clearly discarded and unrecognizable microSD cards are also soldered onto a USB stick and managed with the external one on the USB stick board instead of the microSD's internal controller," explains Conrad Heinicke, Managing Director of CBL Datenrettung GmbH.
[...] Technological advancements have also affected these NAND chips, but not in a good way. The chips originally used single-level cell (SLC) memory cells that only stored one bit each, offering less data density but better performance and reliability. In order to increase the amount of storage the chips offered, manufacturers started moving to four bits per cell (QLC), decreasing the endurance and retention. Combined with the questionable components, it's why CBL warns that "You shouldn't rely too much on the reliability of flash memory."
[...] It's always wise to be careful when choosing your storage device and beware of offers that seem too good to be true. Back in 2022, a generic 30TB M.2 external SSD was available for about $18 on Walmart's website. It actually held two 512MB SD cards stuck to the board with hot glue – their firmware had been modified to report each one as 15 TB. There was also the case of fake Samsung SSDs with unbelievable slow speeds uncovered last year.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nofsck Ingcloo on Thursday February 08 2024, @03:41PM (1 child)
There's a guy who spends a lot of time working with storage devices. He has created a tool that reveals whether s USB stick actually provides the advertised amount of storage It is freeware. It can be obtained here: https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm [grc.com]
1984 was not written as an instruction manual.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by krishnoid on Thursday February 08 2024, @04:57PM
There's also the command-line fight flash fraud [readthedocs.io] utility under Linux, whose data format is compatible with h2testw [heise.de], both of which I've used successfully on hard drives and flash memory. This one looks like it's good quality as well, and I have to wonder with the amount of bad drives that have been found that this might not be moving towards an FTC issue.
These are helpful checking out new media, as you can check that it's reporting its entire capacity, that every byte writes and reads back the same data, and you can leave the data files on the drive to reverify later to make sure the storage medium itself hasn't acquired any bit errors. You can also run them on a drive that you're retiring or reselling so you know the capacity is correct and the sectors are good, and they can run the same utility to verify that as well.