Odd situation with USB drive

[eviltwinzzz]

I purchased a generic 1TB thumb drive from Amazon with the intent of copying DVDs of old TV shows onto it using Handbrake to make the files, put the USB drive in the router so the iphones, roku TV, playstation and other devices in the household can play them (1 person has anxiety issues, 'Friends','The Office','Seinfeld' brings that down a notch). The problem is when I copy files to it, I randomly get the message the drive is corrupt, I format the drive, start over and the same thing happens. The drive has ends for USB, android and iphone, all the data on the drive is wrecked when I run it on another device and I have to reformat again (ouch).
When I do the same thing with a regular Sandisc 128g thumbdrive, the process works flawless, but the storage is not enough, is the cheap generic USB drive just unreliable? Have I physically damaged the drive? What went wrong with preparations A-G? Did shutting down the Ubuntu Desktop PC with the drive plugged in corrupt the drive?

[mikewhatever]

1. is the cheap generic USB drive just unreliable?
Possibly, even likely yes.

2. Have I physically damaged the drive?
How should anyone know? Take it in your hand. Look at it? See anything broken?

3. What went wrong with preparations A-G?
...don't know what that even means.

4. Did shutting down the Ubuntu Desktop PC with the drive plugged in corrupt the drive?
It may corrupt the filesystem on the drive.

There are programs to test USB drives/SDcards. Most of them are for Windows, but there is a commandline badblocks for linux.
https://superuser.com/questions/3762...stick-in-linux

[coffeecat]

I purchased a generic 1TB thumb drive from Amazon

How much did it cost? Was it a "bargain"? If so, it's probably a fake, a low capacity drive programmed to declare itself as 1TB. Unfortunately, Amazon is not immune from having these fakes listed on their site. Two links for you that came up on a google seacrh:

https://bluescreencomputer.com/2020/...-flash-drives/

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech...s-how-you-know

[Autodave]

I have a 1 TB USB drive here. Paid $20 US for it. If I format it to 8 GB, it works great. Otherwise it is worthless.