Among the top contenders of countries where 128GB and similar capacities have magically sprung up are China and India. The fraudsters go to the length of even selling them under a brand name, like Sony or Kingston.
To share a story, I recently talked to someone on twitter who was all proud and happy to announce that his father had brought him an amazing 120GB(!) flash drive from his visit to China. Suspicious about this, I sent the person a tweet asking if he had tested it yet. To my surprise he replied with a properties screenshot that showed a pie graph stating 119.97GB.
I responded with "the real test will be when you're actually transferring that amount of data, let me know how it pans out". The next day I got a tweet back saying that at 60GB, the flash drive maxed out. And not only that, after several attempts the thing actually died down completely. Suffice to say, he wasn't very happy. But since it was just a well meant gift, he took it lightly.
This type of fraud is not isolated. In this case the father had bought the flash drive from a market but I've also seen posts mentioning that 128GB memory sticks were obtained from actual stores in foreign countries. You may also find them online as I've personally seen ads on a South African directory and from an ebay seller located in Latvia. Especially auction sites suffer from this because often by the time the fraud is noticed it may be too late. The customer ends up unsatisfied and probably angry, while the seller may be able to run off without taking responsibility.
So take my advice and be careful regarding any USB drives that are above 64GB. Whether you're a customer or webmaster, don't be impatient and do a little research first. If you happen to come across a 128GB flash drive first be aware of the country. Then don't let a properties screen or brand logo mislead you to an impulse buy. What you should do is search for a press release or blog post online confirming an official release from that specific brand. If you can't, chances are you'd be better off investing your money in a 32GB or 64GB flash drive. But the same care should be taken here too because believe it or not, the same unreputable sources have faked these as well.
Fret not however. There's hope on the horizon as Samsung has announced to release a 128GB memory stick sometime this year. Officially! I suspect that we will see this as soon as USB 3.0 hits the shelves, probably between autumn and Christmas. That way these large amounts of data can be transferred quickly and efficiently. Let's hope Samsung and other companies will live up to the promise.
Dennis_Tielmann
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