Possibly fake Toshiba 64GB flash drives

[Daniel Prince]

My brother bought what was supposed to be a Toshiba 64GB flash drive
on eBay. He tested it and the true capacity was less than 8GB. The
vendor said, "It seems like we received a faulty shipment with some
damaged ones and have now pulled these off the market."

I noticed that on the front of the package it says that it is a 64GB
USB FLASH MEMORY. On the back of the package it says that "Minimum
consumer-usable memory capacity is approximately 7.72GB. That
sounds to me like an 8GB drive.

On the package it says it is made in Taiwan. On the drive it says
that it is made in China.

My brother says that he looked at the Toshiba web site and did not
find any 64GB flash drives listed. The largest ones listed on the
site were 32GB. I looked on Pricewatch and did not see any Toshiba
64GB flash drives.

Does Toshiba make any 64GB flash drives? If they do not, can we get
eBay to stop listing Toshiba 64GB flash drives? Thank you in
advance for all replies.

 

[R.Wieser]

Remark: 64 Gb(it) equals 8GB(yte). Its quite possible that someone has been
trying to cash-in on the difficulty (by us and automated systems) to
distinguish between the upper/lower-case notation of that letter ...

I also see that eBay has no problem in using 'gb' in its listings, confusing
the matter even further ("G" is ether 10^6 or 2^30, and "g" does not exist)

In other words: Although its quite possible that the company who made those
sticks really tried to cash-in (on our naivite and wanting to obtain
something cheap), I think that eBay also is to be blamed for its
inconsistent/incorrect use of the size-description to such memory-sticks.

By the way: While googeling I saw the same "64 gb" notation (both
lower-case, thus invalid) being used on several other sites.

R.Wieser.

 

[Arno]

Remark: 64 Gb(it) equals 8GB(yte). Its quite possible that someone has been
trying to cash-in on the difficulty (by us and automated systems) to
distinguish between the upper/lower-case notation of that letter ...

Well, maybe. If it is Gb, it would be legal and correct.

OTOH the different text on front and back point more to
somebody printing stickers for the front side and then
selling at a huge price increase.

I advise you to return it if you can.

Arno

I also see that eBay has no problem in using 'gb' in its listings, confusing
the matter even further ("G" is ether 10^6 or 2^30, and "g" does not exist)

 

[R.Wieser]

Arno,

OTOH the different text on front and back

As I tried to mention, no such thing, just two with different base-size
notations (bits v.s. bytes).

Just remember: Advertisements are created to *sell* something, not to give
you information in a way you, as a consumer, expect it

Some people will have no qualms to accept money from naive buyers -- I've
got a first-hand story from someone who bought a few "stainless steel"
plates which rusted-over after a few days. Answer/explanation: They where
stainless (read: without rust-stains) when they where bought ... (and yes, I
did see those rusted-over, and useless for the purpose they where bought
for, metal plates)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


-- Origional message:

 

[Daniel Prince]

Well, maybe. If it is Gb, it would be legal and correct.

OTOH the different text on front and back point more to
somebody printing stickers for the front side and then
selling at a huge price increase.

I advise you to return it if you can.

Nowhere in my original message did I write "Gb". I wrote "GB".

Nowhere on the package did it say "Gb". On the front of the package
it said "GB" twice.

Nowhere in the eBay listing did it say "Gb". The eBay listing said
"GB" only.

The packaging did not have ANY stickers. I took pictures of both
sides of the packaging. I can email them to you or upload them to a
web site, if you want me to.

My brother did return it but he had to pay to ship it back.

I still want to know if Toshiba sells any 64GB (Giga Byte) flash
drives.

 

[larrymoencurly]

My brother bought what was supposed to be a Toshiba 64GB
flash drive on eBay. He tested it and the true capacity
was less than 8GB. The vendor said, "It seems like we
received a faulty shipment with some damaged ones and have
now pulled these off the market."

Does Toshiba make any 64GB flash drives?

I think they do. I Googled "Toshiba semi" instead of just "Toshiba" and found this at their website:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/index.html

They make one series up to 64GB:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/mlc/smartnand/index.html

And another series up to 128GB:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/mlc/emmc/index.html

My brother did return it but he had to pay to ship it back.

He should file a complaint with eBay Buyer Protection and PayPal and get the eBay seller to refund the return shipping cost and any original shipping charge. This kind of fraud by sellers of flash drives has long been rampant, even for flash drives they advertise as 32GB and 16GB. What was this seller's Ebay rating? I've found that high positive numbers, even 100%, meannothing because so many of the ratings are obviously faked (a whole page of comments may say the exact same thing -- rely on the comments, not the numbers). I always e-mail the seller before the purchase and ask something really specific about the product (in the case of flash memory, not just thebrand of the flash chip inside but what series of that brand and what USB-flash interface), something that they can't answer with a simple yes or no.It turns out dealers who "assured" me that their products were of the finest quality were usually unreliable.

 

[Daniel Prince]

I think they do. I Googled "Toshiba semi" instead of just "Toshiba" and found this at their website:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/index.html

They make one series up to 64GB:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/mlc/smartnand/index.html

And another series up to 128GB:

http://www.semicon.toshiba.co.jp/eng/product/memory/selection/nand/mlc/emmc/index.html

I should have asked this: Does Toshiba make any USB 64GB flash
drives?