Cheap memory cards are the dream. Who doesn’t love stocking up on discount memory and extra storage when it’s available? I certainly do. But among all the amazing deals and cut-price memory cards, there are fakes—and lots of them.
Worse than that, fake memory cards aren’t confined to a single website. You can find fake memory cards on Amazon, eBay, and almost every other major online shopping site. Basically, the places where you think you’re safe from scammers aren’t safe at all.
Thankfully, there are a few ways to spot a fake microSD card before you buy, and some handy ways to test any cheap microSD cards you’ve already bought.
This is how you spot a fake memory card before you buy
Some are easier than others, that’s for sure
There are levels to the fake microSD card game, as you might expect. Some fake microSD cards are simple to spot; others have been created to blend in on the major shopping platforms like Amazon.
But there are a few steps you can take to figure out if what you’re about to buy is legit or not, and I have a few handy examples to help illustrate the point.
“Xiaomi” 512GB microSD card
At face value, this Xiaomi-branded microSD card looks completely normal, right? While Xiaomi isn’t a huge brand in the US, it’s a global brand, and this microSD is carrying the branding.
So, what’s wrong with it?
Well, Xiaomi doesn’t make microSD cards, so what you’ll end up with is a non-brand memory card that likely doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity shown before you buy.
Random or generic name brands
I’m not saying that you can’t pick up a quality deal on a microSD card by shopping around and maybe considering lesser-known brands. The evidence for this is clear everywhere—Chinese smartphone manufacturers are an absolute testament to this.
Running through listings on Temu, Wish, and even Amazon shows plenty of memory card brands that look ultra-cheap for huge amounts of storage. However, these lesser-known (or even completely fake) memory card brands are usually accompanied by plenty of issues: fake storage, cards that fail immediately, unreadable memory, unstable storage… the list goes on.
Most of the time, these random brand memory cards are designed to mimic better-known brands, like SanDisk or Samsung.
Details that don’t match
You may not be surprised, but I’ve investigated fake microSD cards before. Last time I checked them out, I found a fake Verbatim 512GB microSD that looked extremely legit. The only problem was that Verbatim didn’t make a card of that size, in that branding, at the time.
I couldn’t find that same card this time around. However, I have found branded microSD cards that don’t match their official counterparts. For example, the “Verbatim 44082” card I found on Wish is presenting itself as a better class of memory card than it really is.
I’ve not bought one of these, so I’m really not sure what turns up when you buy one, but the matching card is a Verbatim 44010. Now, that’s not a bad memory card considering its specs, but it’s not what you’re paying for.
And further to that last point, you can pick up both of these memory cards on Amazon for more than 10 dollars cheaper than Wish, and you have a stronger guarantee you’ll get what you pay for. Amazon is far from perfect, but I feel more comfortable shopping on there than on Wish or Temu.
Test the memory card before you start using it
It’s the only way to be certain, and will protect your precious data
If you’ve already bought a microSD card and you’re wondering if it’s fake, there are a few ways you can test it.
FakeFlashTest
This free software is one of the fastest and easiest ways to check if your memory card is real or not. Developed by the same team as USB multiboot tool RMPrepUSB, FakeFlashTest doesn’t take long to figure out the actual drive capacity.
You can use the Quick Size Test to quickly ascertain if a drive is fake or not. The Quick Size Test writes and reads 512 bytes at random segments across the drive. If the write/read process fails, it displays in the log. If you prefer an in-depth analysis, the Test Empty Space option writes and reads to all available space on the drive, then compares the difference.
- OS
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Windows
- Developer
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RMPrepUSB
- Price model
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Free
H2testw
H2testw is one of the most popular tools for testing out fake memory cards. It’s lightweight and gets the job done quickly with smaller drives. However, it’s on the older side of things, and doesn’t always work well with larger drive capacities. At least, it can take quite a while to complete.
Like FakeFlashTest, H2testw checks the free space on the drive by writing files to all available space on the device, then reading them back.
- OS
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Windows
- Developer
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How to Recover
- Price model
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Free
Fight Flash Fraud (F3)
The previous two tools cater specifically to Windows users, but there are options available for Linux and macOS users, too.
Fight Flash Fraud is a command line tool that works with both Linux and macOS, allowing you to check and verify the capacity of a USB flash drive similarly to how the other apps work. The only issue is that the regular program is, as mentioned, a command line tool, which not everyone is comfortable with.
But if that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, you can opt for F3X, a free macOS GUI for F3 that makes it easier to use. A similar Linux GUI for F3, F3-qt, is also available.
If it feels too good to be true, it probably is
It’s hard not to get swept up when you find an absolute corker of a deal. However, most of the time, when you find a deal that’s just a little too amazing, it’s probably because there are some considerable strings attached.
Unfortunately, there are an unfathomable amount of fake microSD cards on the market. You can test each memory card you buy to make sure you’re not getting a dud, but it’s easier to just skip the hassle entirely by avoiding fake microSD scams to begin with.
However, if you end up with a fake microSD card, all is not lost: there are ways you can reuse fake microSD cards and other memory types, so don’t throw them away!
