Decline in USB Drive Quality Linked to Inferior NAND Chips

A study by CBL Data Recovery reveals widespread use of defective and repurposed memory chips in both promotional and branded USB drives.

A German data recovery firm, CBL Data Recovery, has found a significant decline in the quality of USB drives, attributing the issue to the use of inferior and often defective NAND chips.
These substandard chips, sometimes sourced from reputable manufacturers like Samsung, SK Hynix, and Sandisk, have been found in both promotional and branded USB drives.
The chips often have their original logos removed or obscured, and some USB drives were found to use microSD cards soldered onto the board as makeshift NAND storage.
The shift towards storing multiple bits per flash cell, such as in QLC technology, has also contributed to a decrease in reliability and lifespan of these storage devices.
CBL Data Recovery recommends using high-quality storage devices, keeping them cool, and not filling them to capacity to minimize the risk of data loss.