512GB microSD for $6 – Too Good to Be True
What you see above is the output of a flash card testing tool called f3read. File 15.h2w is where the corruption sets in...
Let's step back. About a month ago a friend of mine enthusiastically told me how he ordered a super cheap 512GB microSD card for his camera. Just a few dollars, no shipping cost. From China. Of course I was more than skeptical, having fallen prey to at least a couple of cases of fake flash cards before.
But for the sake of the greater good, I went ahead and bought not one, but two cards. One with 512MB and the other with 256GB (allegedly).
Together they set me back a whopping $10. Let me tell you how it went.
Here's How They Do It
Let's first look at fake cards and how they come to be.
I'm vastly simplifying here, but in general this is what...