FakeUSB - Flash Drives With Unlikely Capacity

[Muad'Dib]

The 2TB Flash Drive Scam: Why “High-Capacity” Flash Drives Are Fakes: https://datarecovery.com/2022/03/the-2t ... are-fakes/

I recently encountered one of these. Supposed capacity of 2 TB. After copying files to a user's external drive (over 1000 files and about 350 GB of data). The prompt said the copying was successful (no errors). But when I looked at the destination folder, less than 1/2 of the files had been copied. I was running the machine remotely, so it wasn't until later that I discovered the destination drive was a thumb drive (or I would have been suspicious of the capacity before I even started the copy).

The linked article was written in 2022, so in late 2025, some "legit" (at least from known brands) 2 TB thumb drives are now available, but they're not cheap (and according to many reviews, not too reliable).

[haskell]

ValiDrive
Quickly spot-check any USB mass storage drive
for fraudulent deliberately missing storage.
<https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm>

[Muad'Dib]

Thanks!
Once a decade, Gibson comes up with something useful.
Once a century he documents it (I'm pleasantly surprised there is a User Manual for SpinRite v6.1).