64GB Flash Drive

So I want one, but I'm cheap. I get on eBay and see them for less than 4 bucks....what am I missing, how can that be? My local store is selling them for about $40 each...

Check out the auction HERE and tell me what am I missing?

Well, I've got a feeling it's one of those Flash Drive scams, where it's less memory than what's listed.
The log fie hack makes the computer think it has more memory size than it has.

"When you receive the drive, if you right click and go to properties it will display a larger amount of memory than it really has- so when you put data on it that exceeds it's actual memory, old data will be deleted. "

http://www.instructables.com/id/Dont-fall-for-the-Flash-Drive-Scam!/

Some info here too.

https://fixfakeflash.wordpress.com/faq-read/

I hope it isn't one of those scams...

I got two tiny 128 GB USB flash drives (each about the same size as those wireless USB receivers for mice and keyboards) for 8 USD each last year. The storage capacity appears to be accurate on both according to the PCs I've plugged them into. So far, though, I've only come up with about 16 GB of files to put on one of them, though, so it's too soon to tell.

Probably about 56GB



Edited by michelbel 2016-01-11 7:57 AM

That' what I'm thinking too...

So I got the flash drives in the mail today. I checked the properties when I inserted them into my desktop...each reads 64gb available. Now the true test. I made up some folders filled with music and graphic files...the folder was 6.2gb of data. Then I copied the folder over to my external USB hard drive half a dozen times, renaming the folder each time from data1 to data2 to data3, etc.

Now for the truth...time to copy the 6 data files to the USB flash drive.

It seemed to take forever, which you would expect, but after several hours, you can see from the image below, the folders copied over. Now time to check the files within those folders.

Folder1, everything loaded and worked as it should.
Folder2, everything loaded and worked as it should also.
Folder 3, 4, 5, 6....empty. Nothing in them. No files whatsoever.

Each folder contained over 3000 files and 200 sub-folders. I wonder if I exceeded the number of files you can have based on memory or something.

Or is this proof that I have become the victim of the USB flash drive hoax?

BTW, one of the drives is formatted exFat and cannot be formated NTFS...now what is that all about?









Attachments
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usb1.jpg (99KB - 0 downloads)
usb2.jpg (145KB - 0 downloads)
usb3.jpg (101KB - 0 downloads)

Okay...final story. Both flash drives I got are in reality 16gb drives. I guess a 16gb for $3.70 isn't such a bad deal.

However, I wanted a 64gb drive. So I contacted the seller and he/she/they (whatever) said that they were at a loss as to explain the discrepancy.

They did however give me a full refund and told me to keep the drives, asking that I leave them positive feedback. Yeah, sure I will...

Using the software "Chip Genius" and "AlcroMP" I was able to reprogram my flash drive to the proper 16gb size. However, this is not for the "faint of heart" as there are at least a dozen utilities to reprogram your flash drive, and most of them will work with only one chip manufacturer. And then you have to discover your USB drive model. Other factors like the speed levels, read/write levels, voltages, etc...are all time consuming to obtain as it requires surfing a few Russian websites to find your drive in a massive database. Also unlocking the drive to reprogram it was not an easy feat either.

Plus the fact that it takes a long long time to scan and reformat everything. It took me several hours to fix each of the two flash drives. It would have been more productive to throw them in the trash and buy a couple of new one.

So indeed, they were 16GB drives...

It's cool you got to reprogram the flash drive, I never had that experience.



Thanks for sharing your experience with the flash drive, Rich!

So I recently bought Sandisk drives of 16GB for about 5 euro's each. And guess what, they have real, real 16GB storage.
(OK, 15.616.000 k ...)

Good choice Michelbel...stay with brand names from reputable sources and you won't have to deal with what I did...