Seagate hard drives previously used in Chia cryptocurrency mining operations are being resold as new, raising concerns among buyers. An investigation by Heise has uncovered a significant number of high-mileage drives on the market, particularly in Europe, Australia, Thailand, and Japan.
These drives, often datacenter-grade Seagate Exos models, have logged thousands of operational hours, contradicting their marketing as brand new products. During the cryptocurrency boom, mining operations required extensive storage, leading to increased demand for high-end HDDs. As profitability declined, many farms sold their hardware, which was then repackaged and reintroduced into the market.
Buyers can verify the usage history of their Seagate HDDs using diagnostic tools. While SMART parameters can be reset to conceal prior use, the FARM (Field-Accessible Reliability Metrics) values provide a more accurate record. Users can check these values by executing the command smartctl -l farm /dev/sda in Smartmontools version 7.4 or higher or by using Seagate’s Seatools software.
Seagate has stated it only distributes genuine hard drives through official channels and suspects that these used HDDs entered the secondary market before reaching consumers. The company has launched an investigation and urges affected buyers to report suspicious purchases to fraud@seagate.com.
Retailers are responding to the issue. Galaxus has created online help pages for affected customers, while Proshop offers free returns and replacements. Alternate, a German retailer, has encouraged customers to report used drives, and Wortmann insists on verifying drives before offering compensation.
For more details, visit the original article here.