What's more, some USB sticks use the old trick of soldiering a microSD card on the board.

According to TechSpot, most of the rubbish USB sticks CBL looked at were freebies, the kind you get with stuff or from firms at meetings. But some "branded" products were just as bad, though CBL didn't say if these were big names or the kind you've never heard of.

Tech changes have also hit these NAND chips, but not for the better. The chips used single-level cell (SLC) memory bits that only stored one bit each, giving less data but better speed and reliability.

To make the chips hold more, makers started using four bits per cell (QLC), making them weaker and shorter-lived.

With dodgy parts like this,  CBL warns, "You shouldn't trust flash memory too much."

The report shows how some device parts had their makers' names hidden or wiped. One just printed text over the name, while another had been scraped off.

There's a photo of a microSD card inside a USB stick with all its marks removed. It's always wise to be careful when picking your storage device and watch out for deals that sound too good.