Article 7 - Fake Memory Chips increasing

USB Data Recovery services have noticed over recent months the increasing use of "fake" memory chips within certain brands of USB Memory Sticks and certain SD Cards. They are mainly purchased via online auction sites where they "appear" to represent good value due to their significantly lower cost.

Our experience of these devices leads us to think that many people will buy these over the coming months leading to increased incidents of failure.

Most users of these devices won't even realise they don't have a genuine device until the device fails and a data recovery specialist advises them of what they have bought. Very often these cards can only old minimal amounts of data before they fail. Typically these devices hold approximately 10% of the supposed capacity of the chip. For example a 2GB device will actually only be a 256MB size of chip. The reason they show as a 2GB size is that they have probably been "doctored" to appear bigger than they really are.

Our advice is to simply steer clear of any of these and to try and also buy your memory stick or SD card from a proper supplier and to purchase a properly branded device.

posted 13/08/09