Cixert Posted June 20 Share Posted June 20 (edited) On pages like Aliexpress or others you can find very low-cost USB Flash drives and SSD drivers. This is surprising with capacities from 2 to 128 TB compared to the capacities of drives from well-known brands such as Kingston, Sandisk, Crucial, etc. which are between 8GB and 256 GB for USB Flash Drives. It is said in Internet forums that this is impossible, that inside the SSD box there are a couple of large nuts to give weight, that the capacity is not real. I have a friend who assures that the capacity is real. I think that a 16 TB SSD drive is possible, it will depend on the number of cells capable of recording. If we record a Kingston 256 GB SSD several times, this gives a total of several TB. So the manufacturer can increase the capacity by 16 TB allowing it to be recorded only 2 times. With this we already have the same 256 GB unit with 16 TB capacity. This is determined by the cells type it contains: SLC (single level cell) MLC (multilevel cell) TLC (Triple Level Cell) To clear up doubts, I have bought several for a price between 3 and 12 euros, a similar price in dollars. The first suggestive deception is that the units are offered for 1 euro / 1 dollar, but at the time of paying it turns out to be a promotion for a single unit with high shipping costs and the price is the same as what I have reported 3 / 12 € Pay close attention to the basket and when paying, the prices and products paid may not match!!! So far I have received 2 units: -SSD Drive 12 TB https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006997442760.html -USB Flash Drive 16TB https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006845793050.html And I have started to carry out the first tests. However, I have 2 additional problems. 1-Many of the recommended test programs do not recognize the units. 2-Windows XP installs the drivers in Device Manager but does not show any hard drive in Disk Manager, nor partitions, nor hard drive. Other test programs give uneven results, these units could be of real capacity or not, I am still not clear. Performing a capacity test with "H2testw" from Windows Seven, the 12 TB SSD unit is only filled with 8 GiB, however on the USB Flash drive I stopped the test when 634 GiB had been completed. In order to verify the real capacity, I want to copy images from several TB to these drives as a backup of my current disks. But before continuing I want to solve the compatibility problem with Windows XP. Why are these drives not visible in Windows XP Disk Manager? The drives come with a GPT partition table, indicating that the first initial sector alignment is the 4096, with an 4096 bytes physical sector size. To try to solve the problem I have converted the unit to MBR, I have changed the initial sector to 63, 256, 2048... And I have also reduced the partition size to 1 TiB but the result is the same. Why can't Windows XP handle these drives? In the next post I will publish the tests that I carry out. My first suspicion is that both, the USB Flash Drive and the SSD drive, are removable SSD drives. How can I know what cells types they have? Edited June 21 by Cixert 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 20 Author Share Posted June 20 Reserved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Draker Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 Very interesting, I didn't have any success with 'em. I too bought some, but much smaller ones. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 21 Author Share Posted June 21 (edited) Data disk manager with various programs in Windows Seven Do you see any reason why the disks are not compatible with Windows XP? Are both drives SSD? USB Flash Drive 16 TB original partition GPT exFAT SSD Drive 12 TB & USB Flash Drive 16 TB converted to MBR FAT32 with cluster 256 KiB Despite the drive being visible in Windows Seven, DiskGenius says "hidden", other programs do not say "hidden". I have already removed the hidden attribute and converted them to NTFS with 1 TB capacity, but they are still not visible in XP. SSD Drive 12 TB disk SSD Drive 12 TB FAT32 partition USB Flash Drive 16 TB disk USB Flash Drive 16 TB FAT32 partition Edited June 21 by Cixert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Draker Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 "What the hell is up with thumb drives on eBay? Are they ..." https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/rusdva/what_the_hell_is_up_with_thumb_drives_on_ebay_are/ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saxon Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 They are still working on releasing the 1st 16tb nvme now: https://www.techradar.com/news/16tb-m2-nvme-ssds-wont-be-coming-any-time-soon-heres-why The largest portable drive you can get is 4tb now: https://www.westerndigital.com/en-a...isk-extreme-pro-usb-3-2-ssd#SDSSDE81-1T00-G25 Only 8tb internal ssd exist: https://www.samsung.com/au/memory-storage/sata-ssd/ssd-870-qvo-sata-3-2-5-inch-8tb-mz-77q8t0bw/ 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saxon Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 "How would you deal with this? ("2TB" flash storage scam) : r/Ebay" https://www.reddit.com/r/Ebay/comments/79jtnj/how_would_you_deal_with_this_2tb_flash_storage/ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dixel Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 "Buyer Beware - 16tb or larger External/Portable SSD/USB drives are fake. You currently cannot buy a real 16tb external SSD or any USB drives larger than 2tb, at all. They don't exist." https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/buyer-beware-16tb-or-larger-external-portable-ssd-usb-drives-are-fake.3773032/ 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 21 Author Share Posted June 21 (edited) 4 hours ago, Dixel said: "Buyer Beware - 16tb or larger External/Portable SSD/USB drives are fake. You currently cannot buy a real 16tb external SSD or any USB drives larger than 2tb, at all. They don't exist." https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/buyer-beware-16tb-or-larger-external-portable-ssd-usb-drives-are-fake.3773032/ Well, that's what I want to check. What is true and what is false. According to that link I have to use H2wtest to verify units. I have already mentioned that in one of the units I have stopped that test at 624 GiB. But I still don't want to confirm that this capacity is real. I will upload all results tests. Until now I have been trying to make the drives visible in Windows XP, unfortunately I have not succeeded and I do not understand why. The result on XP is the same as with the Seagate 5TB external box converted to MBR. The device manager recognizes and installs the hardware, but neither the drive nor the partitions are visible, except in this case I can take the hard disk out of the box and connect it with another adapter. On these drives with supposedly 12 and 16 TB, these are displayed in the device manager... ... but only 2 programs recognize that there is a disk drive installed in XP, MiniTool Partition Wizard and EaseUS Partition Master, but both show the drive as a 2 TB "Bad Disk". Afaik I have to conclude that some drives with more than 2 TB are not possible to install on XP with Microsoft drivers due to the adapter firmware. It seems that there are certain adapters type that on XP are limited to 2TB. It is somewhat strange, because I have 8 TiB external hard drives working with USB adapters on XP, but not all adapters work. Some with MBR +2TB do not work on XP but do work on NT 6-10 and others do not work on any operating system. I will be left wondering why. I have tried to install the Universal ATA Driver (UniATA), but I have not succeeded yet, it seems that it is necessary to edit the .inf file adding the Hardware ID. so that my unit is recognized. http://alter.org.ua/en/soft/win/uni_ata/uni_ata.php Does anyone know another updated driver for disk drives in XP? Edited June 21 by Cixert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Draker Posted June 22 Share Posted June 22 12 hours ago, Cixert said: Until now I have been trying to make the drives visible in Windows XP, unfortunately I have not succeeded and I do not understand why. Cixert, do you have WinHex? Go to "tools", "open disk" and open it as "physical device", what does it tell you? No need to format them before! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 22 Author Share Posted June 22 (edited) 15 hours ago, D.Draker said: Cixert, do you have WinHex? Go to "tools", "open disk" and open it as "physical device", what does it tell you? No need to format them before! Winhex in XP is not able to open the drive, gives in/out error. In Windows Seven it gives the same values for the SSD 16 TB drive and for the Flash 16 TB drive. This says that both drives have capacity 16 TB. XP WinHex - SSD 12 TB Seven WinHex - SSD 12 TB Seven WinHex - Flash 16 TB Edited June 22 by Cixert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 22 Author Share Posted June 22 (edited) These programs do not recognize the drives in Windows Seven, so it is not possible to test. -Checkflash (check sectors). -Flash Drive Tester ---> does not recognize this drives installed how flash units, this confirms both that are SSD units. -RMPrepUSB ---> does not list these units although yes other disk drives (PATA/SATA & USB) Edited June 22 by Cixert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j7n Posted June 22 Share Posted June 22 I suspect that the data might wrap around some smaller block of real flash. Let's say you write something at 258 GB, and it could show up at 2 GB or so. There are other Chinese companies like XRayDisk that sell flash disks at reasonable prices. If these disks were real, those sellers would be out of business. The fake disks can't be considered reliable, and maybe it is little loss to break them open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 23 Author Share Posted June 23 Test performed from Windows Siete / Windows 10 Chip Genius - SSD 12 TB Chip Genius - Flash 16 TB FakeFlashTest - SSD 12 TB FakeFlashTest - Flash 16 TB H2testw - SSD 12 TB 1st test error at 8 GB 2nd test error at 44 GB H2testw - Flash 16 TB 1st test 634 GB stopping without error 2nd test 650 GB test in progress without error Usb Device Tree Viewer -SSD 12 TB Usb Device Tree Viewer - Flash 16 TB HD Tune - SSD 12 TB (by USB 2.0) HD Tune - SSD 12 TB (by USB 2.0) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cixert Posted June 23 Author Share Posted June 23 (edited) I think that the tests carried out with FakeFlashTest are not correct. The tool is not able to show the disk drives capacity in the preview. I think it doesn't work with such large units. Regarding H2testw, it is clear that it gives errors in the 12 TB SSD drive, and after carrying out two tests, the errors are not in the same GB amount (8 & 44 GB). On the 16 TB flash drive the H2testw tool has written and verified more than 600 GB in two tests without errors. At this moment I let the test continue. A strange thing, at this moment while the 16 TB Flash test is being carried out, the light on the 12 TB SSD unit is blinking. The Windows Seven resource monitor shows some activity on all disk drives even though they are not working. I don't know if this is normal. Edited June 23 by Cixert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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