Unscrupulous Chinese sellers offer high capacity microSD cards at low prices. But these tempting offers hide nasty surprises.
A 512 GB microSD card sold for less than 20 euros on Amazon? Or even less than 10 euros on other sites? There is a great temptation to buy because the price is so attractive. But what are these offers hiding and what are the precautions to be taken?
Too good to be true…
First of all, you just have to compare with other models and other sales sites to see if the price and features are not suspect. For example, a Huawei microSD card is a blatant scam because the Chinese manufacturer only offers cards in the proprietary NM format.
Then, as always, beware if the deal looks too good. Good deals exist, but when they are too good, there is often a trap …
So, on the Wish e-commerce site, we found an offer for the PNY Elite microSD card. The 512 GB model was sold for 18 euros … per set of two units. A good deal, if you are looking to get ripped off! The official card is sold for more than 100 euros on Amazon …
Read also: Buying guide: how to choose a microSD memory card for your smartphone
The devil is in the details
Before you checkout, pay close attention to the printing details on the product photos – hopefully these are the photos of the products being sold.
Engage in a little differences play session. The color, the fonts used and especially the nomenclature can put you on the spot. Take a look at the official website of the manufacturer and compare with the photo of the card you want to buy.
Also read: SDXC, UHS-I, Class 10 … what do the acronyms displayed on SD cards mean?
In this case, as you can see below, the differences exist and are numerous. The information presented on the official card is not all or in the same way on the alleged PNY card for sale on the e-commerce site.
To find out and demonstrate that the matter was a trap, we ordered and received, a week later, the microSD card, with an SD adapter and a USB reader.
The latter is in microSDHC format, which is odd because the 512GB card is supposed to be in microSDXC format. Normally, the card should not be read by the reader. And yet … it is recognized, which means that it is actually a microSDHC card, so in theory limited to 32 GB.
Make sure you have not been deceived at the reception
Inserted into the computer, the card nevertheless displays a total capacity of 500 GB. So this purchase would have been a good deal? Not necessarily.
First of all, aWith the CrystalDiskMark test software, we find that the throughputs are rather low: around 19MB / s read and 14MB / s write. Strange for a card advertised on the site at 100 MB / s.
512 GB card does not reach 15 GB of storage
Then, to test the actual capacity of this card, we used H2testw software, which performs write and verify operations. In order to speed up the process, it is usually sufficient to test the first 64 GB.
The result is clear: only 14.7 GB can be used! It is therefore actually a 16 GB microSD card whose capacity has been manipulated to make it look like 500 GB.
Please note that this small verification operation can also be carried out on a USB key whose capacity seems doubtful to you.
Try reformatting the card
It should therefore not be used as is because you risk losing data. With a little luck you did not use the card as soon as it was received and did not take photos or videos that were never recorded due to lack of space.
The best thing to do is to return the product until the withdrawal period has passed. If it is too late, however, you can try reformatting it.
Be careful, it sometimes happens that the cards bought in this way are of poor quality and that they do not like this treatment. It can therefore happen that they die during these operations.
Anyway, if they have survived, then we advise you to test the entire new capacity of the microSD card with H2testw, to verify that it is reliable. If this is not the case, alas, only the trash is left!