It is pointed out that the scam of resetting old Seagate hard disks that have expired the warranty period and sending them as new originates from China
German media c't: Magazin explains the current situation, saying, 'There are cases where Seagate HDDs that have been in operation for hours are sent as new.'
Hard disk fraud: Increasing evidence of origin in China | heise online
According to c't: Magazin, unknown scammers are resetting the SMART values of used hard drives and distributing them through unknown routes, affecting not only ordinary consumers but also authorized retailers.
However, some Seagate HDDs record a parameter called FARM in a location separate from SMART, which cannot be reset by fraudsters, so by checking the FARM value, it is possible to find out the actual operating time of the HDD, etc.
According to a C't: Magazin reader, the affected hard drives had an average of about 25,000 operating hours. These hard drives were being sold as 'new'.
The problem is not limited to German consumers; similar reports have been received from customers in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, the UK, the Czech Republic, the US and Japan. Customers of Australian retailer East Digital have also reported that their FARM is showing long uptimes.
It is unclear where these drives came from or how they ended up in Germany, but c't: Magazin has suggested they may have come from a Chinese cryptocurrency mining facility.
According to c't: Magazin, Chinese cryptocurrency mining facility Chia is selling off its hard disk drives because the energy costs of mining have become higher than the profits. The storage capacity available at Chia was initially a few exabytes, but later increased sharply. However, since the summer of 2024, the storage capacity of the Chia network has been decreasing, from about 34 exabytes (EB) at the time to about 19 EB.
The loss of about 15EB is equivalent to about 1 million hard disks with a total capacity of 16TB. Not all of them are Seagate-made, but Seagate has a share of more than 40% of the hard disk market, so roughly speaking, more than 400,000 used Seagate drives of 16TB may have been discarded by Chia, c't: Magazin points out.
'I asked Seagate and they told me that my hard drive was originally sold to a Chinese company in Mongolia,' one victim wrote in a message on a forum. c't: Magazin reported that 'Seagate's German representative was less forthcoming about the origin of the drive, declining to elaborate due to data protection reasons, but asserting that the company was not involved in the fraud.'
According to c't: Magazin, while some of the HDDs still have a few months left on their warranties, most have long since expired, and many of the disks were sold as OEM disks and therefore no longer have warranties from the manufacturers.
c't: Magazin reported, 'Many of our readers have complained about dealers selling OEM discs without manufacturer warranties long before these scams began. We recommend contacting the dealer's warranty department as soon as you receive your drive to find out what the situation is.'
Seagate also issued a statement to technology media outlet Tom's Hardware, saying, 'You should only buy from Seagate-certified resellers.' However, c't: Magazin pointed out that 'of the dozens of stores where readers allegedly purchased second-hand products, five were on the list of certified partners,' raising doubts.
in Hardware, Posted by log1p_kr