The cryptocurrency connection: how used HDDs entered the market
The affected onerous drives reportedly stem from cryptocurrency mining farms, significantly people who mined Chia cryptocurrency. In contrast to conventional cryptocurrency mining that depends on GPUs, Chia mining is storage-intensive, resulting in a surge in HDD demand throughout its peak.
As Chia’s profitability declined, many mining operations shut down, offloading their closely used HDDs into secondary markets. A few of these drives have had their inner utilization logs reset to seem as new, deceiving clients, the report added.
The fraudulent gross sales first got here to mild in January when patrons started inspecting their newly bought Seagate Exos knowledge center-grade HDDs. SMART parameters, which observe drive utilization, had been reset to masks put on. Nevertheless, deeper evaluation utilizing FARM (Discipline-Accessible Reliability Metrics) values uncovered the true operational historical past of those drives.
Greater than 200 reviews have surfaced globally, detailing situations the place supposedly new Seagate Exos knowledge middle HDDs had been in operation for 15,000 to 50,000 hours. These drives have been bought through third-party marketplaces, together with eBay, and have been reported in international locations reminiscent of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, the UK, Japan, and the US, the report added.
A Seagate consultant stated, “We suspect these drives had been new merchandise that Seagate bought to clients who later bought them on the used market. On this occasion, we imagine that someplace within the used market provide chain, the drives had been remarketed and resold as new. We advocate that resellers buy drives from Seagate approved distribution companions, as buying from Seagate-authorized distributors is one of the best ways resellers, and consequently, their finish clients might be certain of the authenticity of Seagate merchandise.”
Trade implications and subsequent steps
The widespread nature of this fraudulent resale follow raises issues about transparency within the secondary market. System integrators who resell HDDs could not at all times present enough warranties, leaving enterprise clients in danger.
