ValiDrive

What ValiDrive is

ValiDrive is a free Windows utility from Gibson Research Corporation for spot-checking USB mass storage drives for deliberately missing storage. It tests 576 evenly spaced locations by writing random data and checking whether each location stores and returns it. Before testing, it reads the region’s existing contents; after the check, it writes those contents back. The utility detects internal RAM caching and adjusts transfer size when needed to bypass it. A drive map labels each tested location as validated, read error, write error, or no storage. Its final report summarizes read and write access times, including minimum, maximum, average, median, and variance. The maker describes ValiDrive as a quick, cursory spot-check rather than a comprehensive deep test of storage media. While running, it briefly checks for updates through an anonymous DNS query, but does not update itself automatically. The listed releases are v1.0.0 from October 6, 2023, and v1.0.1 from October 8, 2023. Gibson Research Corporation is based in Laguna Hills, California, and is owned and operated by Steve Gibson.