Steve Gibson, of Security Now! and Spinrite fame, reported in the latest show notes at https://grc.com/sn/sn-937-notes.pdf of a Spinrite testing problem that turned out to be a fault in the USB drive. Upon investigation, it seems that, to quote Steve, ‘there is an epidemic of fake drives flooding the retail market’. Of particular concern is that they appear to read and write correctly, but actually don’t, and so data corruption and loss is a real risk.
He goes into much more detail but perhaps the takeaways are:
- Always buy your drives (USB and otherwise) from a reputable source
- If you want to test them, Spinrite looks like a great and inexpensive way to do that and you can find out more at https://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm
Late update – Steve Gibson has just posted ‘By popular demand… I am (briefly) pausing work on SpinRite v6.1 to create a new piece of GRC Freeware which will quickly and non-destructively check the terrain of any USB-connected mass storage drive for “fakery” – It will quickly spot “fake” or badly damaged drives.’ You can check on his website grc.com for news, and we will let you know when it’s released.