Beware of the Growing Scandal of Refurbished Seagate Hard Drives for Chia If You've Bought an Internal One.
Hard drives used for Chia cryptocurrency mining have been resold as if they were new.
Seagate has denied its involvement in the fraudulent resale of hard disk drives (HDDs). Recently, it was discovered that many of these devices, previously used in Chia mining farms in China, were resold as new by retailers who were unaware of their history. An investigation revealed that a significant number of heavily used hard drives have appeared on the market, particularly in regions such as Europe, Australia, Thailand, and Japan. These drives, mostly Seagate Exos data center-grade models, showed thousands of operating hours despite being marketed as new.
The boom in cryptocurrency mining, especially Chia, demanded large storage capacity, which skyrocketed the demand for high-end hard drives. However, when mining profitability declined, many of these farms shut down and sold their hardware. These hard drives were then refurbished and reintroduced into the market, deceiving consumers.
Concerned buyers have the option to verify the true usage history of their Seagate hard drives through specialized diagnostic tools. Although SMART parameters can be reset to conceal prior use, FARM values (Field Access Reliability Metrics) offer a more accurate record. Users can check these values using the command smartctl -l farm /dev/sda in Smartmontools version 7.4 or higher, or via Seagate's Seatools software to inspect the drive's operating history.
Seagate has stated that it only distributes genuine hard drives through official channels and suspects that these used HDDs entered the secondary market before reaching consumers. In response to this situation, the company has initiated a comprehensive investigation and urged affected buyers to report any suspicious purchases.
The impacted retailers are also managing the situation. Galaxus has created online help pages for affected customers, while Proshop offers free returns and replacements. Alternate, a German retailer, has denied prior knowledge of the issue but has encouraged its customers to report used drives. Wortmann, for its part, emphasizes the importance of verifying hard drives before offering compensations.
