How to Identify if the capacity of your FLASH storage device is genuine or counterfeit

Have you at some time purchased a flash drive  or memory card that always stored corrupt data?
You paid for a 64gig memory card and all you stored in it is simply just got corrupted.
I have been a victim several times even with reputable retailers.

These counterfeit flash storages are low capacity in nature, devices that have been maliciously altered so that they appear to have much more capacity than its original.

An example is the 64 gig memory card I purchased which ended up having actual capacity of 2gig. So I actually paid for 2gig.

Now I didn't get to know this on time because I actually copied a video file inside it as a test which checked out fine. The video file size was 1.5gb. I was able to play the video with no issue of corruption. Thus I "Assumed" the flash was genuine. Boy was I wrong. Later in the week I decided to do a major backup of my mobile phone since I was purchasing another one. After the backup, I formatted the phone and then sold it off. I purchased my new mobile phone and restored all my data into it just to find out to my dismay, that 98% of the data I though I backed up was actually corrupt. I totally went bezerk!!! What a loss.

These counterfeit drives will report the fake capacity to Windows and other systems, which will in turn display a deceptively false capacity in the drive's property display.  
The funny part is that these drives operate normally under low capacity usage, but will corrupt data once their "true" capacity is exceeded potentially leading to massive data loss. A lesson I bitterly experienced.

But to be honest these flash storage devices are not fake in the sense of the word. I would rather call them "Fake Capacity Flash Storage Devices".
Dishonest suppliers purchase mass quantities of low capacity drives (possibly factory rejects) and then reprogram the controller chip that manages the memory. Special software is used to update the firmware so that these drives can display the deceptive storage capacity. 

Most time the give away detection of these counterfeits is the price. If it is too good to be true then its most probably counterfeit. Counterfeiters have produced convincing look-alike to many popular brand name flash drive styles. The cases look almost identical and they are very often sold in convincing brand-name labeled packaging. 

How do you test for counterfeit flash storage devices?
The only way to be sure is to write data and then verify that it can be read back intact. It is very essential to perform the verify step. 

Alternatively you can have an application perform this test for you. I have a list of good application that can be used as seen below:

1. H2testw
2. Check Flash
3. USB Flash Drive Tester
4. FakeFlashTest
5. ChipGenius
6. USB Memory Stick Tester

Of all of them, my favorite is the H2testw which in my opinion is the most safe and reliable software.
The program was written by Harald Bögeholz  after they found that the flash drives they gave as complimentary gifts were actually fake! The program was originally written for their customers to make up for the mistake.

Lets see how to use it

Using H2TESTW

(For this tutorial, I will be using my 2gig USB Flash drive as a test device.)

1. Download the application from here or alternatively you can download it from the original owner here:
https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539
2. Note that the application is portable and thus requires no installation.
3. For better results its advisable to format the flash device before the test. This will allow the application to test all available space on the device.
4. Insert the usb flash drive, memory card, SSD or any other flash storage device.
5. Right click on the device in windows explorer and click on format

6. Ensure quick format is ticked. Then click on Start.

7. Once quick formatting is done, the application can thus be initialized.

8. Start the application. it should look like the screen shot below. By default it is set to German (Deutsch). Please set it to English.

9.Select the target drive to be scanned.In my own case its drive F:

10. Browse through your desired drive and click ok

11. Ensure "All available space" is checked. 
12. Click on Write+Verify

13. You will get a warning. It is normal so just click on Ok.

14. Once Writing is done, It will commence verifying

15. After verification a report will be given on the state of the Flash storage as seen below.

Please note that the warning seen in the report is very normal and doesn't reflect any problems whatsoever. Flash storage devices keep a certain amount of storage space for system related data. The rest of the storage is what is available for use. In my case here what was available for use is 1,898mb

16. Notice that my 2gig Flash drive is genuine as the H2TESTW application did not detect any errors.

So that's it. 

You are thus encouraged to use this application to test any flash storage you want to purchase before you pay for it.

Note however, that the Larger the Flash the longer time it would take to perform the Write and Verification exercise.