A widespread scandal involving used Seagate hard drives fraudulently sold as new has continued to escalate, with new evidence suggesting that the drives originated from Chinese cryptocurrency mining farms. The drives, many of which had logged 15,000 to 50,000 hours of prior use, were reportedly altered to appear unused before re-entering the retail supply chain.

The first reports of affected drives surfaced in January, when consumers noticed inconsistencies in supposedly new Seagate Exos disk drives used in data centers. The issue has since expanded globally, with over 200 confirmed cases across Europe, Australia, Thailand, and Japan. While Seagate maintains that these products did not come from its official distribution channels, the scandal raises serious concerns about unauthorized resellers and supply chain security.

An investigation by Heise suggests that the fraudulent HDDs were sourced from mining operations in China to mine Chia, a cryptocurrency that caused a surge in HDD demand before becoming economically unviable.

During the Chia mining boom, demand for high-capacity hard drives skyrocketed, leading to shortages and price surges. However, as the profitability of Chia mining declined, many operations shut down, flooding the market with used hardware. It now appears that some of these used drives were relabeled and resold as new, deceiving both retailers and consumers.

Although standard SMART parameters track HDD usage, these values were reset to obscure the actual wear and tear. However, a more in-depth check using FARM (Field-Accessible Reliability Metrics) values can reveal a drive's true operational history. Consumers concerned about their purchases can verify their drives using Smartmontools version 7.4+ (use command: smartctl -l farm /dev/sda) or Seagate's SeaTools software.

Retailers impacted by the scandal have taken different approaches to address customer complaints. Some have acknowledged that they unknowingly sold these manipulated drives and are offering refunds or exchanges.

Seagate has distanced itself from the fraudulent sales, saying that it did not distribute the affected drives. It urges affected buyers to report their cases via fraud@seagate.com. The company has launched an internal investigation and is collaborating with retailers and law enforcement to track the fraudulent resellers.

Past few months or a year or so, there's a sudden surge of Seagate HDD being sold at considerably low prices that what it usually is. Recently it was exposed those are used HDD with its S.M.A.R.T info wiped out. Now new info have come out, those HDD were from Chia crypto mining farms. Even the seller doesn't know it is used HDD

Used Seagate drives sold as new traced back to crypto mining farms

Past few months or a year or so, there's a sudden surge of Seagate HDD being sold at considerably low prices that what it usually is. Recently it was exposed those are used HDD with its S.M.A.R.T info wiped out. Now new info have come out, those HDD were from Chia crypto mining farms. Even the seller doesn't know it is used HDD

Used Seagate drives sold as new traced back to crypto mining farms

Past few months or a year or so, there's a sudden surge of Seagate HDD being sold at considerably low prices that what it usually is. Recently it was exposed those are used HDD with its S.M.A.R.T info wiped out. Now new info have come out, those HDD were from Chia crypto mining farms. Even the seller doesn't know it is used HDD

Used Seagate drives sold as new traced back to crypto mining farms

anyway to run this tool on Synology NAS?

Plenty in Shopee.

I m skeptical and ask the seller got warranty or not. But no answer.

bought a few seagate ironwolf 6tb from lazada back in 2023
smartctl -x returns power on hours as 9335 (~1.4 years)
smartctl -l farm returns power on hours as 38028 (~4.3 years)

price was cheap when i bought it, label also has typo
at least it was usable, and i only stored plex media files on it

btw, the shop was jasonaccess/TechAccessories

I also saw the cheaper HDD in Shopee and was skeptical on the unusually low price. Lucky that time I wasn't in need of HDD
The seller advertise it as new HDD?

The seller advertise it as new HDD?

yup advertised as new
my thoughts at the time was this was failed qa smuggled out of factory
label was also reprinted and contains typo

This is when newly bought? Actual already 4 years and 4 months?

Sifus,

I'm split between Synology DS1522+ and Lockerstor AS6706T. Looking to multi-purpose the device; for file storage and some for streaming. They are about the same price but with some dramatically different specs. I've been reading thru pages upon pages but I guess local sifus are my best bet     

Thanks

AS6706T have iGPU, if you need to reencode before stream, this is the only choice between these 2 NAS.
Intel Celeron N5105 seems slightly faster than AMD Ryzen R1600, but if just for file transfer then likely the difference is not noticeable.

DS1522+ have 1 more 3.5 bay while  AS6706T have 2 more M.2 SSD and I believe it's not locked to any specific M.2 SSD unlike Synology need to use it's proprietary SSD if for storage. The LAN port is also 2.5GbE and there's PCIE slot that's not proprietary so can use 10GbE card for cheaper if you need the speed. DS1522+ also PCIE slot for 10GbE card but it's proprietary.

OS and software wise undoubtedly Synology is more polished and have more apps that can give similar feel to most of Google apps. If you plan to use the NAS apps than Synology have the upper hand, if you going for open source apps and run everything on Docker then both can do it.

You can try Synology OS demo and also it's apps demo by using this link below
https://demo.synology.com/en-global/dsm

Asustor also have it's live demo site for you to try the OS and it's apps
https://www.asustor.com/live_demo

Sifus,

I'm split between Synology DS1522+ and Lockerstor AS6706T. Looking to multi-purpose the device; for file storage and some for streaming. They are about the same price but with some dramatically different specs. I've been reading thru pages upon pages but I guess local sifus are my best bet     

Thanks

just to add on xxboxx's post, on the streaming part, depending on your configuration and playback device, you might not need to be concerned about reencode

my plex setup, playback devices consists of the following:
4k smart tvs
windows pc using plex app (using browser sometime requires reencode)
ipad (bought the app)
mi box s

plex relay disabled, external playback through vpn, all clients are considered local
so far all video streams are direct play

Falsified Seagate's Exos and IronWolf Pro hard drives are sold by retailers in different countries and generally look almost like new. The drives appear unused to the software because their internal usage logs, specifically SMART parameters, were wiped. However, a closer look at these drives may reveal slight dents and scratches on the chassis as well as scratches on their SATA connector, which are clear signs of previous use.

Also, the QR codes on counterfeit units have been tampered with. Instead of linking to Seagate's usual verification page, they redirect to a warranty check that does not display the serial number or storage capacity, making it harder to verify authenticity. Since the labels on the drives are false, there are slight variations in label alignment and scaling. Finally, tools like smartmontools that can read Seagate's FARM (field-accessible reliability metrics) values reveal that some had operated for over 50,000 hours.