{"id":430980,"date":"2022-01-24T09:13:05","date_gmt":"2022-01-24T07:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=430980"},"modified":"2022-01-24T09:18:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T07:18:43","slug":"why-1tb-flash-drives-are-so-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/hardware\/430980-why-1tb-flash-drives-are-so-expensive.html","title":{"rendered":"Why 1TB flash drives are so expensive"},"content":{"rendered":"

USB flash drives come in various capacities, ranging from 4GB to 2TB, and the larger sizes have remained pricey compared to their smaller counterparts.<\/p>\n

In South Africa, a 1TB flash drive goes for anywhere from R2,799<\/a><\/strong> to R7,449<\/strong><\/a>, while smaller capacities are available for a fraction of the price.<\/p>\n

The availability of 1TB flash drives is also limited in South Africa.<\/p>\n

Jess Raftopoulos, director at Dreamware Tech, explained that a possible reason for high prices is that the appeal for flash drives revolves around the ability to transfer small to medium-sized files in a small package.<\/p>\n

“For larger files, the consumer considers alternatives, such as external hard drives, or, more recently, external SSDs,” she said.<\/p>\n

“They often offer a suitable alternative to flash drives for large file storage or backups.”<\/p>\n

External solid-state drives (SSDs) with a capacity of 1TB start at around R2,279<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Theoretically, an external SSD is very similar to a large-scale flash drive as they use the same file storage technology, but on a much larger scale with some extremely impressive speeds in the external M.2 ranges,” Raftopoulos explained.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

MyBroadband’s capacity test results of a 2TB flash drive purchased from Wish<\/a><\/strong>. While the operating system recognises the drive to have 1.90TB of storage, testing revealed that the actual capacity was 14.4GB.<\/p><\/div>\n

“The massive developmental leaps of solid-state drives have resulted in a lowered reliance on flash drives and caused stagnation in that field.”<\/p>\n

Enhancements to SSDs over the years have also resulted in smaller form factors, which, combined with web-based file transfer applications, have made flash drives less appealing.<\/p>\n

“When one considers purchasing an external solid-state drive (often pocket-sized), a flash drive’s appeal diminishes,” Raftopoulos stated.<\/p>\n

“Web applications such as WeTransfer allow for transferring files between devices through the Internet, which can further negate the need for a flash drive in some instances.”<\/p>\n

As a result, it seems that flash drive manufacturers have not attempted to develop more cost-effective flash drives with large capacities.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that less reputable retailers sell fake high capacity flash drives at much lower prices.<\/p>\n

Unscrupulous sellers may advertise\u00a01TB flash drives at lower prices, but there is a good chance these devices do not provide the claimed capacity.<\/p>\n

In September 2021, MyBroadband ordered 1TB and 2TB flash drives from Wish. We discovered that the manufacturer had spoofed the drive sizes<\/a><\/strong> to fool operating systems into believing they offer these capacities.<\/p>\n

Upon further investigation, we determined that the actual capacities of both these drives were 16GB, of which only 14.4GB was available.<\/p>\n

Wish advertised the 2TB option for $9 (R136) at the time \u2014 a fraction of the cost of a legitimate 1TB or 2TB flash drive, but still expensive for a 16GB drive.<\/p>\n

When we alerted Wish about the deception, it refunded the purchase<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Apple considers delaying new VR and AR headset until 2023<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A transition to web transfer platforms, combined with the development of pocket-sized SSDs has caused the price of 1TB flash drives to remain high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":430992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[71336,62514,35,74924,28190,38104],"class_list":["post-430980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware","tag-dreamware-tech","tag-external-storage","tag-headline","tag-jess-raftopoulos","tag-solid-state-drive-ssd","tag-usb-flash-drive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":431146,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430980\/revisions\/431146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}