Ripped off? 1Tb mem stick bought…

[Terminator X]

But it only seems to hold 500Gb unless I'm being very thick?



Ripped off or just me being an idiot?

TX.

[the-norseman]

Have they sent you the wrong one? or does the other 500gb show up as a different letter? notice thats been mounted as F drive.

[.:ian:.]

Possibly not even 500gb, a lot of fake devices are 32gb but have the fike system set to show a much larger capacity.

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-...

You can put 500gb on, but the excess will just be overwriting the data.

[dapprman]

Problem is even on Amazon you get a lot of these. Probably find OP purchased a top brand from a legit source and it is just a mix up, but it is safest to ignore the cheap 'no-brand' Chinese stuff you can find even in the big on-line stores.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

Not sure that size is commerically available yet,,,


https://darwinsdata.com/are-1-tb-flash-drives-real...

[Fore Left]

Open Disk Management (type it into the Windows search box). It will tell you if there's an unformatted partition.

If not, run one of these checkers to confirm the actual size (H2TESTW will take forever on that size assuming it is 500GB).

[jesusbuiltmycar]

.:ian:. said:

Possibly not even 500gb, a lot of fake devices are 32gb but have the fike system set to show a much larger capacity.

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-...

You can put 500gb on, but the excess will just be overwriting the data.

This x1000! I doubt the USB drive the OP bought has more than 16GB on it




Use this tool:

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/7571-validrive....

[hiccy18]

Kingston do a 1TB drive, they retail it for £78. How much did you pay OP?

I've had a few interesting converstations with people recently: who knew 28TB flash drives were available, and only £16? Chinese are way ahead of us, I tell you.

[Terminator X]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

.:ian:. said:

Possibly not even 500gb, a lot of fake devices are 32gb but have the fike system set to show a much larger capacity.

https://www.geckoandfly.com/22803/detect-fake-usb-...

You can put 500gb on, but the excess will just be overwriting the data.

This x1000! I doubt the USB drive the OP bought has more than 16GB on it

[deleted YouTube link]

Use this tool:

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/7571-validrive....

Lol interesting. So I bought a 1Tb mem stick, the software declares it reads as a 524Gb mem stick then the actual storage is 3.65Gb!



Didn't even know that this was a "thing". Thanks for help / warnings all.

TX.

[The_Doc]

This turned up with some rubbish partitions and file extraction stuff on it, but one trip to a Partition Manager program gave me back all the space. After I'd scanned the hell out of it.

It is labelled on the outside 982Gb. I think I paid £20 for it.




Report #1
test date and time  27/01/2025  at  11:40
declared drive size  1,054,867,456,000 (1.05TB)
validated drive size  62,374,772,736 (62.4GB)
highest valid region  62,374,772,736 (62.4GB)
hub or drive vendor  vendorco
hub or drive product  productcode_3.0
serial number  ***********************

I now i see why my PS4 won't mount it as an external drive !!

How is this possible ?

Edited by The_Doc on Monday 27th January 11:41

[Mont Blanc]

Terminator X said:

Lol interesting. So I bought a 1Tb mem stick, the software declares it reads as a 524Gb mem stick then the actual storage is 3.65Gb!



Didn't even know that this was a "thing". Thanks for help / warnings all.

TX.

Yep, there are fake memory sticks everywhere. Have been for years. As someone else said, Amazon is riddled with them, as are places like eBay.

I buy memory sticks from places like Curry's or direct from SanDisk etc.

[jesusbuiltmycar]

The_Doc said:

How is this possible ?

The firmware on the USB stick has been hijacked to report a huge size. The nastiest thing is that the PC will try and use the space reported and in many cases report no errors - you just end up with corrupted data.

If something can be faked for financial gain (i.e. a scam) it will be.

[mikef]

jesusbuiltmycar said:

Not sure that size is commerically available yet,,,

https://darwinsdata.com/are-1-tb-flash-drives-real...

Leaving aside that blog being nearly 18 months old and Sandisk now offering several 1TB USB thumb drives ( link ), I do remember an equally authoritative explanation years ago of why it would never be possible to create memory chips with more than 1MB capacity

Even a 2TB flash drive https://shop.sandisk.com/en-gb/products/usb-flash-...

Edited by mikef on Monday 27th January 12:58

[eeLee]

The_Doc said:

How is this possible ?

Edited by The_Doc on Monday 27th January 11:41

You used ValiDrive that Steve Gibson created as freeware because he saw a problem of fake USB devices being supplied.

He writes it up here where you downloaded the tool that you used, it's a good summary: https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm

In short, snake oil. Cheap drives faked and sold less cheaply, the buyer has no way of recourse.

[Riley Blue]

mikef said:

jesusbuiltmycar said:

Not sure that size is commerically available yet,,,

https://darwinsdata.com/are-1-tb-flash-drives-real...

Leaving aside that blog being nearly 18 months old and Sandisk now offering several 1TB USB thumb drives ( link ), I do remember an equally authoritative explanation years ago of why it would never be possible to create memory chips with more than 1MB capacity

Even a 2TB flash drive https://shop.sandisk.com/en-gb/products/usb-flash-...

Edited by mikef on Monday 27th January 12:58

My wallet is telling me to buy two 512GB drives at £36.99 each than a single 1TB at £121.99.

https://shop.sandisk.com/en-gb/products/usb-flash-...

[Terminator X]

Riley Blue said:

My wallet is telling me to buy two 512GB drives at £36.99 each than a single 1TB at £121.99.

https://shop.sandisk.com/en-gb/products/usb-flash-...

Same. Thanks for help on here, this is what I did.

TX.

[Bill]

Bonkers! I had no idea this was a thing. Very glad I was impatient and grabbed one while passing Currys.

[phil4]

Riley Blue said:

My wallet is telling me to buy two 512GB drives at £36.99 each than a single 1TB at £121.99.

https://shop.sandisk.com/en-gb/products/usb-flash-...

There's almost always a "sweet spot" when buying stuff like this, applies to RAM, SSDs, Spinning rust, the works. Basically the top rated one is -never- priced in line with the lower stuff. You can use maths to work out the price per size ratio and just go for the tweet spot where it's dropped off a cliff, like the 512Gb ones you're looking at.