The probe found that many of these drives—with between 15,000 and 50,000 hours of prior use—had their internal records altered to appear unused, a discovery that does not disprove Seagate's assertion that the fraudulent HDDs were obtained from channels that did not buy from official distributors.
During the height of Chia's popularity, soaring demand for HDDs led to shortages and price hikes; however, as mining profitability declined, numerous farms shut down and flooded the market with second-hand drives.
Reports of affected HDDs have now surfaced from over 200 cases worldwide, including in Europe, Australia, Thailand, and Japan, with the fraudulent sales first coming to light in January when supposedly new Seagate Exos datacenter-grade drives were discovered to have been heavily used.
Although the drives’ SMART parameters—which typically track usage—were reset to mask their true wear, a deeper analysis utilising FARM (field-accessible reliability metrics) values exposes the actual operational history of the drives. Seagate denies involvement; it has launched an investigation and now offers a tool to determine whether HDDs are "shiny new" or used.
Affected retailers have adopted varying approaches in response to the scandal. Some claim that neither the store nor its German suppliers were aware that the drives were not new, suggesting customers contact them if they find their "new" drives have actually been used; Galaxus, for example, has established an online help page, while Proshop offers free returns and replacements, and Wortmann insists on inspecting the HDDs before offering any compensation.
Seagate, distancing itself from the issue, maintains that it only distributes genuine new drives and believes that the used units were resold as new somewhere in the secondary market before reaching customers.
Buyers concerned about their purchases can verify the true HDD usage history since SMART parameters can be unreliable.
According to Tom’s Hardware the operational time can be determined by checking the FARM values using the Smartmontools application version 7.4 or higher (via the command: `smartctl -l farm /dev/sda`) or Seagate's Seatools software. Seagate has urged affected buyers to report any fraud cases directly at as its full-scale investigation continues.
