8-TB pen drive sold for $9 gets a teardown
While data storage chips do indeed get less expensive and more spacious each year, there is a threshold that separates dirt-cheap products from offers that are too good to be true. When this MySKU forum user received a non-functional "Xiaomi MIJIA USB 16TB 2TB OTG Metal USB 3.0 Pen Drive Key" from their friend, a pen drive with a claimed capacity of 8 TB that stopped functioning shortly after the purchase day, they seemingly knew that it belongs to the latter category.
The drive is sold in multiple capacity variants and is even supposed to be waterproof.
▶ The product's claimed specs are as follows:
- Interface: Type-C & USB3.2.
- Net weight: 9g.
- Size:69195.5mm.
- Capacity: 128GB/256GB/512GB/1TB/2TB/4TB/8TB/16TB.
- 5.Color:Silver.
Support system:Win98/ME/2000/XP/ Vista/win7 /win8/win10 Mac OS 9.X/Linux2.4 or above.
OTG-Functional SmartPhone (Android system 5.5 ) .
- Compatible with 96% Android devices in the market.
- Package: 1* pen drive.
Features:
- High speed and stable data transfer,designed for next-generation devices with the new USB Type-C port
- Plug and Play,no external power supply required.
- 2-in-1 design with a Type C port and USB 3.2 connector,easy for data transmission between Type C devices and computers.
- Use A-class chip, be erased repeatedly for 100,0000 times
- Solid State Storage,portable, ultra clear cap can protect the connector well.
- Writing speed: 15m/s - 30m/s . The rate of performance depends on the different operation system available and various flash adopted,so the speed maybe different
Opening the product up did not take long, reports the forum user who goes by the name Murometz. Hidden inside was a basic card reader and an 8-GB micro-SD flash memory card.
Some testing revealed the memory card's real capacity. Instead of 8 gigabytes, it was just 221.7 MB.
Since the card reader part of the supposedly Xiaomi Mijia-brand pen drive appeared functional, Murometz installed a decent 64 GB card (which corresponds to ~0.8% of the product's claimed 8-TB capacity), assembled it and gave it back to their friend, along with an advice to stay away from such offers in the future.
For those interested in fast memory cards from reputable brands, Notebookcheck recently tested several micro-SD Express and UHS options that are perfectly compatible with the second-generation Switch.
Source(s)
Post by Murometz on MySKU.club (in Russian)
