Beware Of Cheap Hard Drives, They Sell Crypto Mining Drives Like New

The crash of Chia, the cryptocurrency based on computer storage, has caused the market to fill up with used hard drives.

Unlike other cryptocurrencies, which use the power of graphics cards to perform mathematical calculations, Chia is based on a lottery, based on the storage space available in the system. Therefore, the more capacity your computer has, the more likely you are to win coins.

When it was officially launched in April as a ‘green alternative’ to Ethereum and Bitcoin , it sparked unusual growth in sales of hard drives and SSDs, and in some markets, such as Asia, drives were difficult to find. In exchange for spending so much space for ‘useless’ crypto data, Chia’s mining (or ‘farming’ as they call it) consumes less electricity than coins that need graphics cards. However, it can destroy hard drives and SSDs due to the high workload, generating a large amount of electronic waste and devices with a reduced lifespan.

The Chia fever appears to have died down, with its price falling to $ 212 at the end of August, down from the peak of $ 1,614 it enjoyed in May. That has caused many of those who bet on the new cryptocurrency to abandon it, getting rid of their ‘farms’. Worse still, they are using the second-hand market, and even first-hand stores, to sell their units.

That is the ad from VNExpress , which has discovered Facebook groups of thousands of sellers of hard drives and SSDs, who are offering them at prices much lower than the actual sale price ; in some cases, they have confirmed that they are selling the units losing up to 62% of what they invested.

The temptation to get a bargain on storage is great, but it is advisable to ignore these types of offers. Most of these hard drives are on the latest, and will probably fail shortly after you buy them; in the case of SSDs it is even worse, since a drive that can last 5 or even 10 years perfectly, lasts only 80 days ‘farming’ Chia.

Much like the cheap graphics cards that came out when other cryptocurrencies fell, some stores are buying these units in droves and selling them as new. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the unit we have purchased has the original box, has not been opened and that the seal has not been broken; Likewise, most manufacturers offer tools on their website to analyze the health of our device.