The scandal mainly involved Seagate Exos server HDDs between 12TB and 16TB.
Even checking the drive’s warranty shows it to be good until 2029.
However, Heise researcher, Luts Labs, points out several ways to tell if these HDDs are used.
The first and simplest thing to do is physically inspect the drive.
Look for dents, scratches, and other wear on the housing.
Look at the production date sticker placement.
It should be level and in the right place.
An online warranty check can be a tell-tale sign, too.
A fraudulent HDD’s warranty will be exactly five years from the fake production date.
Buyers can also confirm the HDD’s age using SMART monitoring tools likeSmartmontoolsorSeaTools.
This software lets users view Seagate’s field-accessible reliability metrics (FARM).
It will indicate how long the drive was in use.
Investigators found some that had logged over 50,000 hours.
It is worth noting that Heisequestionedwhether Toshiba and Western Digital drives were affected by the same fraud.
After testing samples using Smartmontools, it found that Toshiba and WD drives returned errors when validating FARM values.
Seagate is still standing firm that it will not replace the drives since it did not distribute them.
