Flash drive headache

mranderson · 26 Dec 2012 at 13:43

Is there any way to check if a flash drive's capacity is actually what is says? Have heard stories about flash drives advertised as being 32GB (and indeed showing that capacity at disk management) but actually being much smaller but flashed so that they show as being larger ones?

I would assume this shouldn't be the case with sealed flash drives bought from retailers but what a about online orders?

bremen1874 · 26 Dec 2012 at 13:50

You could copy 32GB of data to it.

Surveyor · 26 Dec 2012 at 14:22

And then check that the data is actually there.

Some of the fake drives will appear to write the amount of data that's supposed to be their capacity but when you check they won't have that amount of files stored on them.

mranderson · 26 Dec 2012 at 14:30

How can I then tell without having to check each file individualy to see if it was actually copied?

bremen1874 · 26 Dec 2012 at 14:37

Get hold of a decent sized ISO image (1GB+).

Copy it multiple times to fill the drive. When your done make sure they can be copied back.

wazza300 · 26 Dec 2012 at 14:47

yep thats right,they are usually fake if its not holding the specified amount of data

they use small 2gb sticks and print them as 8gb and so on

mranderson · 26 Dec 2012 at 14:50

So when you copy the file back from the flash drive it will show how much was actually copied?

bremen1874 · 26 Dec 2012 at 15:24

Compare the original ISO to the version that's copied back. Generate a checksum for both files if you want to be absolutely sure.

Just copying the entire capacity there and back should be enough to prove it is the size it claims to be. It'll obviously be slightly under 32GB as far as Windows is concerned.

Mr-White · 26 Dec 2012 at 15:43

wazza300 said:
yep thats right,they are usually fake if its not holding the specified amount of data

they use small 2gb sticks and print them as 8gb and so on

They "overclock" the usb memory stick so it even shows up in Windows as big as it they say it is. The problem is when you copied files to it, it would fail. One Chinese guy also wrote a script on the ones he was flogging that made the files that were copied to it constantly overwrite it's self, so people would only notice what was going on when they tried to find their files.

MW