Is there a USB flash-drive limit ?

[SAE140]

I recently bought a 1 Gb USB EMtec pen-drive/ flash-drive thingy from the local supermarket, and it works great - albeit at usb1.1 speed, which is a little on the slow side, but I can live with that.

Encouraged by this, I then bought a 4Gb flash-drive from some Chinese outfit on Ebay, but this one has turned out to be hopeless.

Anything over 2 Gb causes spurious deletions and a scrambled directory, so I re-partitioned the drive as 2 x 2 Gb, but even that didn't cure the problem - the deletions and scrambling still occurs, but now across the partitions.

In practice, is there an upper limit to the size of USB flash-drive which can be used on a TP600, or could this simply be a rogue device ?

Ta
Colin

[Paul Pennington]

More information needed: what operating system, what format on drive (FAT16, FAT32, etc.).

[aaa]

It's not unusual for there to be counterfeit flash drives on ebay that are sold as double their actual size...

No, there is no hardware size limitation. OS limitation maybe, but I'm leaning towards this being a dud drive.

[SAE140]

More information needed: what operating system, what format on drive (FAT16, FAT32, etc.).

Win98Lite. Tried both 4Gb FAT32 and 2 x 2Gb FAT16. Same result.

No, there is no hardware size limitation. OS limitation maybe, but I'm leaning towards this being a dud drive.

Yep - me too.

[RobertJohnB]

Best advice that can be given is to please read the following warning on eBay. Don't be fooled thinking you got a "CHEAP 4GB" deal, in fact you paid for a "VERY EXPENSIVE 2GB" hacked sticks reprogrammed from much smaller cousins 512MB, 1GB, 2GB capacity drives for quick profit!

http://reviews.ebay.ca/BEWARE-of-FAKE-1 ... 0001236200

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[SAE140]

Latest news is that I settled for using it with a single 2Gb partition - which worked ok-ish for 2 days - but now the 'busy' LED just keeps flashing - continuously - and the device never gets to be recognised. So it's now 100% useless. Just as well, as I'd never have felt comfortable relying on such a dubious device for data retention.

But - it's been an interesting exercise in purchasing 'bargain' non-branded goods from overseas ....

Lessons have been learned.


last minute idea ....
Before consigning it to the bin, I opened-up this pen-drive only to find a Hynix 4Gb memory chip inside ...

Or is it ? And a quick look at the Hynix data sheet reveals that that's how the scam is being pulled-off. It IS indeed a 4 Gbyte chip - 4Gb x 8bits, that is - so 4Gb is duly being reported to the operating system. What OUGHT to be reported is 2Gb x 16 bits. And so when the OS reaches 2Gb (x16) it starts to write to memory which it 'believes' exists, thus overwriting the existing data, and scrambling both the existing data and some of the directories in the process.
So - anyone with one of these devices is living in a fool's paradise: thinking that their data is safe when the chances are that it's been corrupted. And of course, you only get to find that out when it's too darned late.

I'll report this to Ebay - but dunno if it'll do any good.

[beecee]

I don't know if this will help, but my 600E's & 600X's will read all my Pen Drives, 64mb Odd Ball - 512mb SanDisk Cruzer - 1gb Toshiba - 2gb RiData & 4gb SanDisk Cruzer.

However, neither of the above Laptops will read my 8gb Patriot XT 8gb Pen Drive but it works a treat in a modern Laptop.

4gb seems to be the limit for me.

If I use a Usb 2.0 Pen Drive on the Old Ibm's, Windows complains & says that it will work faster if I plug it into a Usb 2.0 port, but it still works & reads okay.

[bobgarty]

I then bought a 4Gb flash-drive from some Chinese outfit on Ebay, but this one has turned out to be hopeless.

Can we name and shame this seller so others can be aware of their fraud ..?

[SAE140]

I then bought a 4Gb flash-drive from some Chinese outfit on Ebay, but this one has turned out to be hopeless.

Can we name and shame this seller so others can be aware of their fraud ..?

Well, my supplier's name was daudau1234 - but from info I've picked up over the last few days it appears that he, along with dozens of others in Hong Kong are most likely to have been 'victim sellers' - that is, they have also been duped by professional crooks.

Seems that this is a major pain-in-the-butt for Ebay and many hundreds of their unsuspecting buyers:

http://ebay.dybteam.com/2008/10/05/fake ... comment-93

http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2008/ ... l-refunds/

Luckily for me it was only a 4Gb/2Gb device - and has been a cheap lesson in caveat emptor.
Branded goods from reputable suppliers ONLY from now on !