News Chia Coin Miners Reselling Used SSDs as New: Report

Jan 21, 2021
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I suspected something may have gone wrong with Chia when I saw that SSD prices have gone down about 10% below what I paid after peaking 10% above.

I never expected Chia to work out. I'm glad to see this storage blackhole and associated strain on the support component supply may be about to evaporate.

Here's hoping Chia demand stays low. I get people like the idea of non-fiat currencies that aren't controlled by a single government, but people really picked an inconvenient time to jump into cryptocurrencies right when businesses and people needed new computers. It's similar to why corn ethanol is a terrible idea overall, because you're tying two of the most volatile markets out there (food, energy) together. I was hoping graphic cards would come down in price, but with Ethereum prices spiking again it'll probably be another long while.
 

frodoitsmyname

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Mar 4, 2020
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Yet another nonsense article from Tomshardware on this topic with a clickbait subtitle, based on a report written so poorly it doesn't deserve the name report.

Why do people who write about Chia insist on confusing Harddisks (spinning disks) with SSD's ?!

  • Chia plotting wears out SSD's, yes this is true.
  • SSD's are not bought in bulk, as they are one time use, then you don't need them anymore.
  • Most people use RAMdisks to create plots, so no ssd's being "burnt"
  • You use HDD's to store those plots, HDD's do not wear out from this, not at all. No spin up/down, only very light reading on the drives.
  • The total storage space dedicated to Chia has remained nearly unchanged for months now, but still showing slight growth overall, no exodus in sight.

There has been no significant spike or shortage as far as SSD's go, HDD's where briefly in high demand but prices have long since returned to normal.

Some people - who did not get their lambo in time - are selling their harddrives, that's it.

Anyone can hate crypto as much as they want, but please get your facts straight before you publish a piece of FUD.
 

spongiemaster

Admirable
Dec 12, 2019
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Yet another nonsense article from Tomshardware on this topic with a clickbait subtitle, based on a report written so poorly it doesn't deserve the name report.

Why do people who write about Chia insist on confusing Harddisks (spinning disks) with SSD's ?!

  • Chia plotting wears out SSD's, yes this is true.
  • SSD's are not bought in bulk, as they are one time use, then you don't need them anymore.
  • Most people use RAMdisks to create plots, so no ssd's being "burnt"
  • You use HDD's to store those plots, HDD's do not wear out from this, not at all. No spin up/down, only very light reading on the drives.
  • The total storage space dedicated to Chia has remained nearly unchanged for months now, but still showing slight growth overall, no exodus in sight.
There has been no significant spike or shortage as far as SSD's go, HDD's where briefly in high demand but prices have long since returned to normal.

Some people - who did not get their lambo in time - are selling their harddrives, that's it.

Anyone can hate crypto as much as they want, but please get your facts straight before you publish a piece of FUD.
Yes, there seems to be some real lack of basic knowledge of how Chia works in this article. Dumping SSD's doesn't really indicate anything. Certainly not an exiting of the market. SSD's are only used for plotting. They are not used for farming Chia, that would be a horrible idea. Once you've filled up all your storage, you don't need the SSD's any more. As you said, it's more likely they moved to RAM disk plotting, negating any need for SSD's at all. Looking at total netspace, the exponential growth stopped back in June, but it is still slowly increasing so there is no mass bailout.
 
Jun 11, 2021
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Reports suggest that miners who are looking to turn to other altcoins are selling their worn-out SSDs from Chia plotting as brand new.

Chia Coin Miners Reselling Used SSDs as New: Report : Read more
Where is your information pointing to Chia farmers selling used SSDs as new? This is bogus.

A simple search through the Chia forums will show that we have been closely following NVMe usage and death vs rated TBW and so far, many report working units far surpassing rated TBW and ZERO deaths. NVME cost is pennies per plot.

In the Chia forums there are a few peeps selling their Chia farming gear, but most farmers are quite happy with the present Chia price as it has inhibited the real enemy, Chia network growth.

Chia farmers are not quitting in droves as you suggest. Starting a Chia farm now is a long bet, but those of us who got in early are seeing a reasonable return on their Chia farms.

I don't understand why you make these unfounded claims.
 

Co BIY

Splendid
Are they resetting the SMART data? The article does not explain how they are selling them as new.
I too am interested in what is entailed in the "renewal" process. Seems they would only need a dusting and put back in the original packaging. Most consumers wouldn't know how to check the wear levels and if half "used up" it probably will never effect them anyway.
 
Jun 11, 2021
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What, specifically, is inaccurate?
The click bait title stating that peeps are selling used as new with ZERO info or facts about this is the worst inaccuracy.

The article itself speaks of HDD prices returning to normal which is the only accurate thing in the article, but has nothing to do with the title.

The rest of the article is filled with inaccuracies exposing the author's complete lack of understanding of Chia farming economics and claims incorrectly that a significant percentage of Chia farms are shutting down as a result of Chia's price drop. While there are very few new Chia farmers, there are also very few farmers quitting.

Chia farming is still profitable. The Tom's Hardware rant (they are certainly not the only offenders) about Chia plotting eating NVMe plotting drives is just plain wrong. Replacement cost for plotting NVMe is pennies per plot. HDD prices have returned to normal because reduced profitability based on today's Chia prices has slowed network growth from weekly exponential to a crawl. This slowed network growth is balanced by Chia price. We have now entered a more stable and realistice Chia economic paradigm which bodes well for Chia's future.

The Title, tone, and entire article are inaccurate except for the drop in HDD cost.
 
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Jun 11, 2021
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While you may be correct (I don't know and mostly don't care), you've also presented no facts.
This article shows up in Google News. As "News" it is the author's responsibility to provide facts.

The facts on Chia farming can be easily found in the many Chia forms. As you mostly don't care you probably won't bother, but well debated information can be found in the many threads covering everything in this click-bait article and much more. There is also discord and github.

The author of this article did not do due diligence by reviewing the above, and instead gave us a click-bait title with a shoddy and inaccurate article.

I care about media integrity. This article does not even qualify as a shill. It is just click-bait fake news.
 
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USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
I get what you're saying.
But simply telling us that the info can be found on discord and github is just as bad.

I could probably find info on discord stating Chia is dying/dead.
Or it is the best thing since sliced bread, and the pathway to a benevolent future economy.

"The author did not provide any facts"
Well...that goes both ways.
 
Jun 11, 2021
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I get what you're saying.
But simply telling us that the info can be found on discord and github is just as bad.

I could probably find info on discord stating Chia is dying/dead.
Or it is the best thing since sliced bread, and the pathway to a benevolent future economy.

"The author did not provide any facts"
Well...that goes both ways.
No, I just told you where to find the facts yourself if you did not believe them as stated by me.
 
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SSGBryan

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Jan 29, 2021
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Here's hoping Chia demand stays low. I get people like the idea of non-fiat currencies that aren't controlled by a single government, but people really picked an inconvenient time to jump into cryptocurrencies right when businesses and people needed new computers. It's similar to why corn ethanol is a terrible idea overall, because you're tying two of the most volatile markets out there (food, energy) together. I was hoping graphic cards would come down in price, but with Ethereum prices spiking again it'll probably be another long while.


People who like the idea of "non-fiat" currencies are people that have never passed an econ 101 class.

They don't trust a government, but they do trust somebro@nigeria.org
 
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frodoitsmyname

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Mar 4, 2020
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I get what you're saying.
But simply telling us that the info can be found on discord and github is just as bad.

I could probably find info on discord stating Chia is dying/dead.
Or it is the best thing since sliced bread, and the pathway to a benevolent future economy.

"The author did not provide any facts"
Well...that goes both ways.
Well I have to agree with Aspy68 here, If you publish an article making big claims, you should be the one providing good references to back up your claims.

Stating "The Chia exodus begins" implies that it is a bad project that could have been expected to fail. That's close to slander. In any case you shouldn't dump on someone's project/company like that, without solid info to back it up.

https://www.chiaexplorer.com/charts/netspace?period=3m
Blockchain explorer - as always - is public and easily findable, showing at worst a slowing growth, nothing close to an "Exodus".

"Chia Coin Miners Are Reselling Used SSDs as New"
There is no mention of this in the referenced report at all and no other evidence provided by the author of the article.
Only this quote is in the VN report:
"Most of these hard drives are used for security cameras, while others are sold to gamers if prices are reasonable," said Nguyen Sinh, a spokesperson for a computer service company in HCMC.
Some individuals buy in bulk and "renew" them as new to sell domestically or export to China, he added."

This however concerns harddrives, as we can read, not ssd's! and it is unclear what the renewal entails and if it even concerns used drives or just overstock being resold.

Most annoyingly, both the VN report and the Toms article keep randomly switching between SSD to HDD, making it impossible to know what is what.
HDD -> Doesn't suffer much wear, no matter how much you write to it.
SSD -> Has limited writes in its lifetime.

IF you use SSD to create the plots, this will wear them down. IF people are selling these as new, that would be bad. But...proof?!

HDD prices have dropped (returned to normal) and yes there are plenty of people who got onboard the hype, bought tons of harddrives in bulk and are now panicking and trying to sell their gear. The other 95-99% of people is not. People are also still joining, resulting in a net growth as shown above.
 
Sep 7, 2021
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Is this author nuts ?

Guess he needs an update what a SSD is and what a HDD is.... or simply be fired and sent back to school , guess he is outdated on modern technology ....

For the rest, seriously , old crap conspiracy stuff of people that jumped in to late or don't even have XCH, same story at every other cryptocurrency ...

Quote:

Chia Network, Inc., a San Francisco CA-based provider of smart transiction platforms, raised $61M in series D funding. The round was led by Richmond Global Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from True Ventures, Slow Ventures, Cygni Capital, Breyer Capital, Naval Ravikant, Collab+Currency and DHVC.

Do you really think those corps and VC's would invest millions in something that would be dead 6 months later ????

Check the investors at https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/chia-network/company_financials , they ain't small and was in May this year, so not even 6 months later some claim it's dead , oh help some need some new brain implants ....

As for HDD , the Ultrastar (Enterprise grade) series (which I use) have a life time of around a +200 Years (WD/Hitachi) even a refurbished one is good kinda for whenever it's outdated, will not die easy ...
 
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Sep 7, 2021
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This article shows up in Google News. As "News" it is the author's responsibility to provide facts.

The facts on Chia farming can be easily found in the many Chia forms. As you mostly don't care you probably won't bother, but well debated information can be found in the many threads covering everything in this click-bait article and much more. There is also discord and github.

The author of this article did not do due diligence by reviewing the above, and instead gave us a click-bait title with a shoddy and inaccurate article.

I care about media integrity. This article does not even qualify as a shill. It is just click-bait fake news.

I made it bold, simply said YES THIS IS PURE CLICK-BAIT CRAP , you are 200% correct @Aspy68

Seriously , I've written hundreds of articles for even big names like AOL in the past, I would be ashamed posting /creating an article without doing proper research

However cudos the Author used all tools available to get it notified by search engines and getting a high ranking, at least he is more or less good at SEO but at the end a stupid Click-Bait article , worthless
 
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Sep 7, 2021
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People who like the idea of "non-fiat" currencies are people that have never passed an econ 101 class.

They don't trust a government, but they do trust somebro@nigeria.org

I guess you need to go back to school, blockchain technology is way older than even Bitcoin , finance wise new there you are correct and not (for the normal people relative new).

Just wondering if you ever heard of the Belgian Jean-Jacques Quisquater , we are now talking about the 90s !!!

Or did you ever heard of that other Belgian thing called SWIFT at the town La Hulpe .... they are deep into blockchain technology financial wise .... some cryptocurrencies try to fight allmighty SWIFT but will fail at the end as they just don't have the resources needed as contacts (eg XRP/Ripple) , majority of the banks in the world use SWIFT services. And o my god ... it is present day blockchain tech...

About not trusting goverment, is it not our prime right to try to avoid taxes and make money :p whatever is needed , don't get me wrong taxes are needed else we wouldn't have sewage, paved roads, etc ...
 
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