Unbelievably cheap: so what's the catch?

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Unbelievably cheap: so what's the catch?

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Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 16 10:58 pm Post subject: Unbelievably cheap: so what's the catch?
Rummaging about on ebay the other day I happened upon somebody selling 256GB memory cards for ï¿½7.99... That's more than twice the size of the HDD in this machine: HTF do they do it? Or put another way: at that price, surely there must be something wrong with them?

buzzy

Joined: 04 Jan 2011
Posts: 3708
Location: In a small wood on the edge of the Huntingdonshire Wolds

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 12:06 am Post subject:
They are probably just bits of plastic with printing on them. The local TSA spoke about cheap memory cards on the wireless the other week. Some are 'genuine' but factory rejects, some are cheap versions labelled as top quality brands, and some are indeed just bits of labelled plastic. Caveat emptor. Henry

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 10:36 am Post subject:
Ebay does have reasonably good buyer protection so I thought it was worth a gamble, but I think it best to give it a thorough test before putting it to use. I've found this software, which appears to be the right kind of thing. I'll report back with the results in due course... First result is that google translate messes up download links. Try here if you're looking for the file.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28239
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 12:56 pm Post subject:
There have been a lot of such cards that fail to last or have less capacity than advertised.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 3:17 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

There have been a lot of such cards that fail to last or have less capacity than advertised.

They are cheap enough that I wouldn't mind a reduced capacity, but I expect problems if the capacity is less than the computer thinks it is. Is there a way to resolve that issue?
On a normal HDD, you'd mark up the bad blocks as unusable I think...

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 4:04 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

Ebay does have reasonably good buyer protection so I thought it was worth a gamble, but I think it best to give it a thorough test before putting it to use.

I've found this software, which appears to be the right kind of thing.
I'll report back with the results in due course...

First result is that google translate messes up download links.
Try here if you're looking for the file.

The Ebay protection is great, but how long it lasts... If the memory card is great when it arrives, but lasts 90 days, I doubt it'd cover you. But, memory is tumbling in price, unless you own an iDevice, so it might be a steal.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 16 4:56 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

The Ebay protection is great, but how long it lasts... If the memory card is great when it arrives, but lasts 90 days, I doubt it'd cover you...

Hence wanting to give it a thorough test straight away.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Mon Feb 29, 16 8:32 pm Post subject:

It should surprise nobody that the cards are not good. Seemed good to start with: I dumped a load of data onto it and it seemed happy enough, but then not.

Fair play to the dealer though: she does advise to format them before you start, and gave a refund without fuss, so that's a free card if I can find a way to use what's usable of it...
I assume you can't do anything simple like mark up the bad block, as you would with a traditional drive.

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