I usually buy a lot on AliExpress. In this store I find all kinds of products, both useful for day to day and to organize the space, and even collectibles. What I don’t usually buy in this store (at least, outside PLAZA or official stores) is electronics. However, not long ago I came across a product that, honestly, I couldn’t miss: a 2 TB USB flash drive for just over one euro. A real bargain. Or not the same?
It is not the first time I have come across this type of product. And not only in AliExpress, but also in other stores like Amazon. They promise devices, which normally cost hundreds of euros, for ten euros, five… or, as in this case, for just over one euro.
One of the products that caught my attention the last time I was around AliExpress was this flash drive. We can find it in various capacities (512 GB, 1 TB and up to 2 TB), and its price is at rock bottom. In addition, it has more than 4,000 units sold, and an average score of 4.6 after 342 reviews. Everything indicates that it is a more than reliable product.
This product features a high-speed USB 3.0 port, guarantees data life for 10 years, has 1,000,000 writes, and is even waterproof!
The flash drive comes home with a metallic finish, as promised by the manufacturer. A very small and light device, with a ring to be able to carry it as a key ring. It seems perfect. I connect it to a secure machine (both for fear of viruses and for being a USB Killer), and apparently everything is fine. Windows recognizes the drive just fine (it’s clean) and shows up as having 1.90TB of capacity. I format it, and the capacity remains the same.
I start copying files, and for a few seconds everything seems to be fine. But, after that time, the speed is reduced to unbearable levels. I copy at less than 1MB/s, which is unacceptable for a USB 3.0 drive. But I still let her copy the files. In total, it takes almost a day to copy 200GB of data.
When finished, I can see the files are (in theory) on the flash drive. However, when checking them I see that all the data is corrupted. Something has happened. And I still have space available on the drive, or so Windows says.
As expected, it is a hacked flash drive, probably around 16 GB, whose firmware has been modified to show 2 TB in Windows. As its capacity has been modified, what it does is copy the data on top of each other, which is why the data ends up corrupted.
Are there really 2TB flash drives?
You can find regular 2TB hard drives, and even larger, for pretty cheap. Specifically, this 2TB hard drive costs just over 60 euros, which is a real bargain.
And, if you are looking for something in solid state, this Kingston external SSD also has a 2TB version that is very cheap, since you can get it for only 144 euros. A bargain that, if you are looking for an external hard drive with these characteristics, you should not miss.
And what about USB flash drives? Here things get complicated, since there are no units of this capacity (at least within the reach of most mortals). The most that I have found has been a 1 TB flash drive, brand Kingston (and another HP, for a similar price) whose price exceeds 100 euros.
So, how can we buy a 1 TB flash drive on AliExpress for only two euros? The answer is obvious. same as this 16TB capacity flash drive.
