F3(1)

📦
version 10.0 · 3 versions
, in alpine 3.24, nixpkgs unstable

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to F3(1) — the manual page for f3write, f3read — test real flash memory capacity. no cap, that's the whole vibe. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

f3write [--start-at=NUM] [--end-at=NUM] <PATH>
f3read  [--start-at=NUM] [--end-at=NUM] <PATH>

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

F3 stands for Fight Flash Fraud or Fight Fake Flash, and it tests the full capacity of a flash card (flash drive, flash disk, pendrive). it writes to the card and then checks if it can read it back. it will assure you haven't been sold a card with a smaller capacity than stated. literally the vibe check your sketchy flash drive never wanted. 💀✨

when writing to a flash drive, f3write fills the filesystem with 1GB files named N.h2w, where N is a number (i.e. /[0-9]+/). yes bestie, it's giving "big files, clear names, no mystery." 🎀

⚠️ WARNING: all data on the tested disk might be lost! ⚠️ like, fr fr — back up anything you care about before you run this. no cap. 😭

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --start-at=NUM — initial number of file names. default value is 1.
  • --end-at=NUM — final number of file names. default value is "infinity".

🎀 EXAMPLE 🎀

to write over a flash drive mounted at /media/TEST:

$ f3write /media/TEST

to read this flash drive:

$ f3read /media/TEST

slay, that's the whole flow. 🦋

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

for detailed information about the F3 tools, see:

https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/stable/

👑 AUTHOR 👑

F3 was written by Michel Machado <michel@digirati.com.br>. this manual page was first written by Joao Eriberto Mota Filho <eriberto@eriberto.pro.br>.

okay bestie, that's the whole manual — this iconic lil' page is from F3 10.0, dated October 2020. stay safe, check your flash cards, and don't let fake capacity girlies win. periodt 💖✨🌸

📦 where this page comes from