Inferior memory chips are hidden in USB flash drives and SD cards, and data recovery companies have exposed the shady scene
IT Home reported on February 4 that data recovery company CBL recently issued a warning that more and more USB flash drives and SD cards use inferior NAND flash memory chips from unknown sources, which seriously threatens data security.
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Conrad Heinicke, general manager of CBL Data Recovery, said that when they were dealing with failed USB sticks, they recently found that the memory chips inside many devices were not only shrinking in capacity, but also that the manufacturer's logo was worn away and the source could not be identified. What's even more surprising is that some USB sticks even solder obsolete MicroSD cards directly to the circuit board.
CBL believes that these inferior flash memory chips are likely to be produced by well-known manufacturers such as Samsung and SanDisk, but they were eliminated because they failed quality inspections. However, these chips were not completely damaged, but were "saved" by reducing their capacity and eventually found their way to the market.
IT House noted that in order to support this claim, CBL published photos of three USB sticks. The manufacturer's logo on one of the flash memory chips was smeared, but it was still recognizable as a SanDisk product, while the other two USB sticks were completely unmarked. To add insult to injury, one of the USB sticks soldered a black MicroSD card directly to the circuit board, a practice that was designed to reduce costs, but also created serious reliability issues.
CBL points out that most of these low-quality USB sticks come in the form of "giveaways", but there are also some "branded products". It's not clear what exactly CBL refers to as "branded products", but if a well-known brand's USB flash drive has a similar problem, it would be a very serious concern.
In addition to the use of inferior chips, the application of QLC technology has further exacerbated the reliability problems of these USB sticks. Flash memory chips consist of memory cells, each of which can store a certain number of bits of data. Early flash memory chips used single-layer cell (SLC) technology, which could only store 1 bit per cell, and while it was highly reliable, it had a lower storage density. In order to increase storage density, vendors are increasing the number of bits per cell of storage, but this also has the negative impact of reduced reliability. The most common QLC flash memory chips on the market today can store 4 bits per cell, which is inexpensive but also has the lowest reliability. CBL warns that the combination of inferior chips and QLC technology will make the quality problem of USB flash drives even more serious, and "users should not rely too much on the reliability of flash memory".
It's worth noting that there are a large number of USB flash drives on the market that claim to have hundreds of gigabytes of storage space, but the actual capacity may only be 16GB or even lower. These USB sticks usually use a similar tactic to solder the MicroSD card to the circuit board.