Not sure how to interpret these results--ValiDrive on EATOP 1TB drive

[GregW]

I'm unsure how to interpret these results. I have this USB Flash Drive with the brand EATOP, reporting 1 TB. I ran ValiDrive on it.
I see a handful of red blocks randomly distributed throughout the drive. Every time I run ValiDrive, the number and distribution of the red blocks is different.

What confuses me is in the final report, the "validated drive size" is always much lower than the reported size, however, the "highest valid region" is always very close to the reported size. In Steve's examples on the ValiDrive product page, these two figures are always the same on fraudulent drives. Moreover, if the validated size of my drive is very low, why are most of the blocks green?

I should also add, every time I run the test, the validated drive size gives a different figure. I'll post an example of one of my tests below.

test date and time	4/11/2024 at 9:09 AM
declared drive size	1,072,694,296,576 (1.07TB)
validated drive size	106,336,653,312 (106GB)
highest valid region	1,070,828,740,608 (1.07TB)
hub or drive vendor	generic
hub or drive product	massstorageclass
serial number	00000000cy02

This is the drive I'm testing:

 

[SeanBZA]

It is a fake, one of those that recycled through the flash to appear to be larger, just keeping the last block of written data, likely it is actually only a 64G drive that was reflashed, or is 128G that failed QC badly, not even reliable enough to be trimmed to 64G and sold.

 

[Steve]

I should also add, every time I run the test, the validated drive size gives a different figure.

Given the tiny physical size of that drive and its claim of being 1TB, I would be extremely skeptical. AND, if nothing else, it doesn't appear to be reliable enough to use, even if it was really 1TB. The reason you get a different “validated size” every time you run the text is that ValiDrive looks at the total number of validated “green” blocks until it hits the first red spot. Since “reliability” appears to be a problem for that drive, the first red block moves around, so SpinRite's assertion of the drive's “reliable” size varies.

There WILL be a ValiDrive 2.0 which I've been wanting to get to, and will be able to, once I finish getting SpinRite launched. It will take a different approach which I expect to be much faster and likely more “definitive”.

 

[GregW]

Thanks, Steve! I have no idea how much this drive cost, as it was given to me as a gift, but I was suspicious of it from day one. Glad to know I wasn't crazy!