Chia Coin Miners Are Reselling Used SSDs as New(tomshardware.com)
tomshardware.com
Chia Coin Miners Are Reselling Used SSDs as New
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/used-chia-ssds-resold
159 comments
HDD price hasn't been lowered for quite some time due to technological bottleneck. Even with OptiNAND only give us the same density as SMR. And EAMR are no where to be seen or tested by consumers.
And now this.
And now this.
Technological bottleneck might be passed but HDD manufacturers intend to keep prices up [1]:
> Value-based pricing
> This led Sivaram to discuss pricing; “Disk capacities are scaling beautifully. We want to move towards value pricing.” Customers are getting substantial added value from the linear scaling in disk drive capacity to the current levels, according to Sivaram. They would get even more from future capacities.
> With larger capacity drives the manufacturing cost in $/TB terms comes down. He suggested that, perhaps, it is time to think about moving from manufacturing cost-based pricing centred on $/TB towards value-based pricing: “$/TB is no longer the right metric.”
> A customers gets more value from a larger capacity drive, he said. “They can monetise more data.” This extra value could be larger than the sheer savings of the lower $/TB cost that WD can pass on. In that case WD could pass on only a proportion of that cost-saving to the customer and so charge for some of the extra value
[1] https://blocksandfiles.com/2019/12/17/western-digital-disk-d...
> Value-based pricing
> This led Sivaram to discuss pricing; “Disk capacities are scaling beautifully. We want to move towards value pricing.” Customers are getting substantial added value from the linear scaling in disk drive capacity to the current levels, according to Sivaram. They would get even more from future capacities.
> With larger capacity drives the manufacturing cost in $/TB terms comes down. He suggested that, perhaps, it is time to think about moving from manufacturing cost-based pricing centred on $/TB towards value-based pricing: “$/TB is no longer the right metric.”
> A customers gets more value from a larger capacity drive, he said. “They can monetise more data.” This extra value could be larger than the sheer savings of the lower $/TB cost that WD can pass on. In that case WD could pass on only a proportion of that cost-saving to the customer and so charge for some of the extra value
[1] https://blocksandfiles.com/2019/12/17/western-digital-disk-d...
All of these digital coins have failed to fulfill their promise to be used as digital currency, but each has caused serious problems. Bitcoin is wasting a titanic amount of energy, and this coin is destroying SSDs. Maybe we should just use our conventional currencies and elect governments we trust to run those currencies in an intelligent way?
No thank you. I don’t think you can trust folks seeking power to have your best interests was at heart. Every civilization before has destroyed their fiat currency through debasement. It is inevitable. Bitcoin is the first time in history folks have been able to opt out of this. I’m sorry you don’t get it today, but you will :-)
Just great. I mean, drives are the only things I'd rather buy new, but how hard can it be to fake the whole packaging these days.
Miners frequently retain the full packaging for return fraud/resale purposes.
Dumpster divers are also recovering packaging for re-use.
Buy direct from manufacturer. Samsung, Western Digital, etc all have their own online stores.
Having purchased an "in stock" SSD directly from WD at the end of last year, it's not something I'm keen to repeat.
Their store seemed to operate primarily on incompetence.
I finally got my invoice two weeks later, still with no working shipping information, and the drive turned up days later still.
On top of their scummy behaviour around SMR disks, and their NAS solution, I think I'll be steering as clear as possible.
Their store seemed to operate primarily on incompetence.
I finally got my invoice two weeks later, still with no working shipping information, and the drive turned up days later still.
On top of their scummy behaviour around SMR disks, and their NAS solution, I think I'll be steering as clear as possible.
One of my worst experiences was ordering direct from a little vendor (not HDD) to avoid Amazon scams.
The vendor added a markup to Amazon prices, and fulfilled with Amazon. I'm pretty sure I got a fake, ordering direct from the manufacturer.
I'll withhold names, so as not to embarrass anyone.
The vendor added a markup to Amazon prices, and fulfilled with Amazon. I'm pretty sure I got a fake, ordering direct from the manufacturer.
I'll withhold names, so as not to embarrass anyone.
I'm confused how you seem concerned about the embarrassment to the perpetrators of a fraud you have been victim of. The effect is inevitably damaging to consumer confidence in general by not identifying the criminal company and creating additional unfounded caution wherever else, so your protection is not a free gesture at all.
My perception is both the manufacturer and I were the victims of fraud, while Amazon was the enabler. Now, I wish the company didn't fulfill through Amazon, but that's not a crime or a fraud.
Shame away!
That's actually a brilliant arbitrage plan in the short term. If the trademark-infringing knockoffs on Amazon come from a country where the trademark cannot be enforced and the original manufacturer cannot compete, the original manufacturer could slow the collapse of their business by reselling knockoffs.
And sidestep the monopolist at the same time. Its a win-win!
Or from firms like Bestbuy they won't have the hassle of manufacturers or the cheating/fraud with Amazon.
I've had obviously used disks "fulfilled by Amazon" before
it was pretty obvious when you've bought 5 disks and one has completely different (crappy) packaging
it was pretty obvious when you've bought 5 disks and one has completely different (crappy) packaging
It’s cryptocurrency, what else do you expect?
I bought an SSD on eBay recently that massively underperformed my expectations.
But I have no real proof to send it back for a refund. Instead I'll just have to suffer with super slow writes.
But I have no real proof to send it back for a refund. Instead I'll just have to suffer with super slow writes.
In my experience the eBay/Paypal resolution process is so heavily weighted to the buyer you shouldn't have any issues returning it and/or getting a refund.
This. I sell an eBay for a living and unless I have proof beyond reasonable doubt that the buyer is lying, I am required to provide a refund.
Since I started telling buyers that I log serial numbers for every item I sell, though, a surprising number of them started closing their own cases.
Since I started telling buyers that I log serial numbers for every item I sell, though, a surprising number of them started closing their own cases.
Count this as another anti-ebay opinion.
My company (I) posted a used printer (HP Laser) for sale.
In the listing I included the printer report showing the number of pages printed.
I even had USED in the description 3 times (and title once).
The buyer filed a complaint that the printer wasn't new. I responded with "Of course it's not, look at the title & description." Ebay made us pay for them to ship it back and refund the money.
When we got it back there were 2,000 more pages printed on it.
I'll NEVER do any business through ebay. You are either braver then I or have a higher tolerance for bullshit then I do.
The buyer filed a complaint that the printer wasn't new. I responded with "Of course it's not, look at the title & description." Ebay made us pay for them to ship it back and refund the money.
When we got it back there were 2,000 more pages printed on it.
I'll NEVER do any business through ebay. You are either braver then I or have a higher tolerance for bullshit then I do.
It sucks, but it's a cost of doing business. Physical retailers get shoplifters, we get friendly fraud.
Fortunately, most people do the right thing and with the mitigation strategies we have in place we lose only around 0.5% of revenue to (suspected) fraud.
eBay's ~10% processing fee makes a much, much bigger dent in our bottom line.
Fortunately, most people do the right thing and with the mitigation strategies we have in place we lose only around 0.5% of revenue to (suspected) fraud.
eBay's ~10% processing fee makes a much, much bigger dent in our bottom line.
I've forgotten the source but it was credible that over 50 percent of UK online purchases are returned. No way is this not costing everyone who tries to be a careful customer and choose wisely etc
I would be shocked if it where anywhere near that high. For us, it's around 2% on both of our businesses, and we have very generous returns policies!
Retail shops have to deal with similar. Basically they used you as a rental service, but used ebay's policies to force it through.
When I worked retail, we used to get people buying cameras or lenses and using them for a weekend, then returning them under the 7-day "no quibble" refund policy.
It wasn't uncommon for a camera or lens to come back with 10,000 shots taken. Best we could do with them is clean them up and sell them on as refurbished. A few went back to the manufacturer and came back as "factory refurbished".
When I worked retail, we used to get people buying cameras or lenses and using them for a weekend, then returning them under the 7-day "no quibble" refund policy.
It wasn't uncommon for a camera or lens to come back with 10,000 shots taken. Best we could do with them is clean them up and sell them on as refurbished. A few went back to the manufacturer and came back as "factory refurbished".
eBay is for buyers, Mercari for sellers. Usually get better prices selling on eBay tho.
my personal view of the accommodation and compromises made for retail consumer behaviour is that there's a incalculable sociological cost created by pandering to impulse satisfaction creeping into noticeably diminished personal and collective self control and behaviour in the current generation of young adults. /old man grump
Agreed with you 100% until you said "young adults". The Boomers are just as bad!
Also, if someone is selling anything on eBay for above MSRP I report them for price gouging. Masks, sanitizer, drives, Ubiquiti cameras, anything. All reported.
Apparently you don't understand what the word Suggested means. Do you also report every single classic car that is selling for higher value that it was initially sold for? If not then you're pretty much just being an asshole for no reason.
What will you do if the manufacturer increases the MSRP because demand exceeds supply? Report them for price gouging?
If it's an emergency situation they they're assholes for trying to profit off the emergency and should be reported.
If it's not an emergency situation then I'm okay with them increasing MSRP. They're the ones who make it, they set the price.
I'm talking about the hoarder-resellers. I have zero sympathy for them.
If it's not an emergency situation then I'm okay with them increasing MSRP. They're the ones who make it, they set the price.
I'm talking about the hoarder-resellers. I have zero sympathy for them.
> If it's an emergency situation they they're assholes for trying to profit off the emergency and should be reported.
But if its an emergency then giving the limited resource to people who already have too much of it is a waste.
How about we meet in the middle? Rather than go full free market or full government why not just let sellers declare the product an "emergency service" which allows the buyer to delay his payment. The invoice is sent to the government who then gets in contact with the seller. The seller presents his costs to provide the emergency service and then the government finally decides upon a fair price and gives the emergency seller a small commission for the trouble of providing an emergency service (this lowers the price the consumer has to pay in the end).
That way the price will still help as a discovery mechanism but have no gouging effect on the wallet of desperate people. Meanwhile people who do not need emergency service will not buy the product because they would be stuck with a large bill as the government would be less likely to negotiate in your favor.
But if its an emergency then giving the limited resource to people who already have too much of it is a waste.
How about we meet in the middle? Rather than go full free market or full government why not just let sellers declare the product an "emergency service" which allows the buyer to delay his payment. The invoice is sent to the government who then gets in contact with the seller. The seller presents his costs to provide the emergency service and then the government finally decides upon a fair price and gives the emergency seller a small commission for the trouble of providing an emergency service (this lowers the price the consumer has to pay in the end).
That way the price will still help as a discovery mechanism but have no gouging effect on the wallet of desperate people. Meanwhile people who do not need emergency service will not buy the product because they would be stuck with a large bill as the government would be less likely to negotiate in your favor.
You need to revisit Economics 101. High demand -> price rise -> more supply -> price drop. If you set a price ceiling, this will make the shortage worse as the market cannot properly function.
> You need to revisit Economics 101. High demand -> price rise -> more supply -> price drop. If you set a price ceiling, this will make the shortage worse as the market cannot properly function.
And you need to revisit Economics 102 where they talk about inelastic demand and why some prices are usually controlled at least to an extent ( food, medication, electricity), and Economics 103 where they mention they real world and economy are slightly more complex and have slightly more variables than what Economics 101 started with.
And you need to revisit Economics 102 where they talk about inelastic demand and why some prices are usually controlled at least to an extent ( food, medication, electricity), and Economics 103 where they mention they real world and economy are slightly more complex and have slightly more variables than what Economics 101 started with.
Your are right about your last point as in real world there is no such thing as inelastic demand.
Food definitely is not as in that case there will be no need to pour the milk into the river during the Great Depression. Basic medication such NSAID are cheap because there's no patent and can be mass produced and things like Novartis’ Zolgensma is apparently a different story. For electricity, don't get me started with Texas... I agree it probably a problem that is it is not controlled there.
The point is, yes there will be more variables in the real world, but the most basic rules still applies.
Food definitely is not as in that case there will be no need to pour the milk into the river during the Great Depression. Basic medication such NSAID are cheap because there's no patent and can be mass produced and things like Novartis’ Zolgensma is apparently a different story. For electricity, don't get me started with Texas... I agree it probably a problem that is it is not controlled there.
The point is, yes there will be more variables in the real world, but the most basic rules still applies.
> Economics 101
Economics isn't a science, so this class is essentially as valuable as any art or philosophy class at prediction reality or informing us of how we are supposed to act: Not at all, unless you put significant amounts of personal effort in.
Economics isn't a science, so this class is essentially as valuable as any art or philosophy class at prediction reality or informing us of how we are supposed to act: Not at all, unless you put significant amounts of personal effort in.
I would say economics is more like historical studies. It is not trying to predict anything, it just give you some tools to learn from the past.
It is not supposed to be a crystal ball that you can see thought the future. Actually, I am not sure if such thing actually exists, but probably a physicist can prove that.
It is not supposed to be a crystal ball that you can see thought the future. Actually, I am not sure if such thing actually exists, but probably a physicist can prove that.
> You need to revisit Economics 101.
Personal attacks not appreciated here.
> If you set a price ceiling, this will make the shortage worse
No. You may perceive the shortage as worse, but in reality, 100% of the supplies will be going to people who need them, as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses not helping anyone. Having 70% of the supplies in the field and 30% sitting in a warehouse, appearing for sale, but outside anyone's budget, is not an efficient use of supplies in an emergency.
If there is a mask shortage, I want every single mask strapped to a face, somewhere, somehow, and zero masks in a warehouse.
If you don't regulate it, it means the rich get essential items while the poor don't. Instead of the people who have the greatest legitimate need for the essential items getting access to them.
Personal attacks not appreciated here.
> If you set a price ceiling, this will make the shortage worse
No. You may perceive the shortage as worse, but in reality, 100% of the supplies will be going to people who need them, as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses not helping anyone. Having 70% of the supplies in the field and 30% sitting in a warehouse, appearing for sale, but outside anyone's budget, is not an efficient use of supplies in an emergency.
If there is a mask shortage, I want every single mask strapped to a face, somewhere, somehow, and zero masks in a warehouse.
If you don't regulate it, it means the rich get essential items while the poor don't. Instead of the people who have the greatest legitimate need for the essential items getting access to them.
> as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses not helping anyone. Having 70% of the supplies in the field and 30% sitting in a warehouse, appearing for sale, but outside anyone's budget, is not an efficient use of supplies in an emergency.
If the items are "outside anyone's budget", then the price gouger will not make money and they will lower the price until someone buys them. Thus, your goal of 100% usage of supplies is still eventually achieved.
> If you don't regulate it, it means the rich get essential items while the poor don't.
If the items are truly essential, and there are not enough to go around, what difference does it make if the rich get them and the poor don't? This seems like you just want to find an excuse to stick it to the rich.
> Instead of the people who have the greatest legitimate need for the essential items getting access to them.
How do you propose determining who has the "greatest legitimate need" more accurately than just seeing who is willing to pay the most?
> as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses
It's interesting that you started off talking about price gouging but have now switched to using the term "hoarding".
The thing is, "price gouging" discourages hoarding. If the price is not increased in response to a shortage, then everyone (rich and poor) is incentivized to buy as much as they can whenever an item is available for sale (even if it's well in excess of their actual need). This is basically the definition of "hoarding". Whereas, if the price were allowed to increase, people are discouraged from buying more than they need, and more supply is available for all.
This is almost exactly what happened with toilet paper last year. Toilet paper costs about $1 / roll. Most people can afford to buy extra toilet paper, and so very quickly the entire stock of toilet paper was bought up and there was none available for sale. If the price had increased to (say) $5 / roll, people would have been disincentivized from hoarding it. As it was, the people who had the "greatest legitimate need" - those that actually ran out of TP - were unable to purchase any.
Additionally, the fact that people like you demonize manufacturers and retailers who raise prices in emergencies as "price gouging" also provides a disincentive for manufacturers and retailers to invest in spare capacity for these very emergencies. If "price gouging" is illegal, there is no good way for manufacturers and retailers to recoup the cost of temporarily increasing production, or maintaining a buffer of inventory for temporary spikes in demand.
If the items are "outside anyone's budget", then the price gouger will not make money and they will lower the price until someone buys them. Thus, your goal of 100% usage of supplies is still eventually achieved.
> If you don't regulate it, it means the rich get essential items while the poor don't.
If the items are truly essential, and there are not enough to go around, what difference does it make if the rich get them and the poor don't? This seems like you just want to find an excuse to stick it to the rich.
> Instead of the people who have the greatest legitimate need for the essential items getting access to them.
How do you propose determining who has the "greatest legitimate need" more accurately than just seeing who is willing to pay the most?
> as opposed to 30% sitting unused in hoarders' warehouses
It's interesting that you started off talking about price gouging but have now switched to using the term "hoarding".
The thing is, "price gouging" discourages hoarding. If the price is not increased in response to a shortage, then everyone (rich and poor) is incentivized to buy as much as they can whenever an item is available for sale (even if it's well in excess of their actual need). This is basically the definition of "hoarding". Whereas, if the price were allowed to increase, people are discouraged from buying more than they need, and more supply is available for all.
This is almost exactly what happened with toilet paper last year. Toilet paper costs about $1 / roll. Most people can afford to buy extra toilet paper, and so very quickly the entire stock of toilet paper was bought up and there was none available for sale. If the price had increased to (say) $5 / roll, people would have been disincentivized from hoarding it. As it was, the people who had the "greatest legitimate need" - those that actually ran out of TP - were unable to purchase any.
Additionally, the fact that people like you demonize manufacturers and retailers who raise prices in emergencies as "price gouging" also provides a disincentive for manufacturers and retailers to invest in spare capacity for these very emergencies. If "price gouging" is illegal, there is no good way for manufacturers and retailers to recoup the cost of temporarily increasing production, or maintaining a buffer of inventory for temporary spikes in demand.
I am not sure if indicating anyone lack of basic understanding of economics counts a personal attack, but calling people as assholes surely is.
Since you talked about PPEs, you can check what happened in Wuhan during the first outbreak. The Chinese government demands no price increase for PPEs such as face masks... and what happened? The hospitals asked the public for donation of N95 facemasks because they cannot get those from the market. Every one in China are of course entitled for protecting themselves, but the truth is, at that time supply is simply not enough for the whole population and medical workers who needed those most cannot get them even the hospitals have enough dry powder to pay up. The market was awfully inefficient at that time.
Having every single mask strapped to a face and zero masks in a warehouse is far from enough. In a shortage, you need MORE facemasks. You need to make sure there will be enough are being supplied at the market. With a pricing cap, there will be no incentive for putting stock in the warehouse on sale and producing more, and it makes things worse.
Since you talked about PPEs, you can check what happened in Wuhan during the first outbreak. The Chinese government demands no price increase for PPEs such as face masks... and what happened? The hospitals asked the public for donation of N95 facemasks because they cannot get those from the market. Every one in China are of course entitled for protecting themselves, but the truth is, at that time supply is simply not enough for the whole population and medical workers who needed those most cannot get them even the hospitals have enough dry powder to pay up. The market was awfully inefficient at that time.
Having every single mask strapped to a face and zero masks in a warehouse is far from enough. In a shortage, you need MORE facemasks. You need to make sure there will be enough are being supplied at the market. With a pricing cap, there will be no incentive for putting stock in the warehouse on sale and producing more, and it makes things worse.
I don’t think SSDs drop in performance after substantial proof.
Linus tech tips YouTube channel has done a few articles on vendors quietly switching components to lower performing parts recently, it’s worth googling around to see if others with the same make/model are reporting vastly different performance from official benchmarks
Linus tech tips YouTube channel has done a few articles on vendors quietly switching components to lower performing parts recently, it’s worth googling around to see if others with the same make/model are reporting vastly different performance from official benchmarks
1. verify it against published benchmarks for that model
2. open up the case and see if it’s actually what you bought
A big item is making sure your filesystem partition is aligned properly. For example, by default the first partition begins on sector 63, which causes logical 4K blocks to straddle two different write blocks on the drive (causing both blocks to be read and re-written). Simple thing is to make sure the partition begins on sector 2048 (since it can begin on sector 0 due to the need to reserve the boot sectors).
Sector 63 used to be common, but I think every modern OS defaults to 2048 now. I know Windows does when installing fresh.
What people who read this article may not realize is that this is the Chia incentive model actually working properly. It is not cost effective to buy new hard drive equipment to farm(mine) Chia. (This was well discussed by Chia Network and the community before mainnet launch) Chia is really designed to be used to farm existing available storage space that people or companies already have for other purposes. For example, a home NAS system that may currently only be using a small portion of it's capacity. People can then slowly fill that space overtime and potentially make some money from their unused space.
The only time it made sense to buy new equipment to try to plot really quickly, was right at the start before Netspace increased. Chia now has somewhere on the order of 300,000 - 400,000 full nodes operating on the network (already making it more decentralized than Bitcoin) and is approaching 36EiB of space. The "green" benefit of Chia is that you don't throw away the proofs that get generated like you do with Bitcoin mining and instead you can keep them for many years and potentially decades. This is where a lot of the power savings come from. Take a look at https://chiapower.org/ to understand the power usage compared to existing cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
The only time it made sense to buy new equipment to try to plot really quickly, was right at the start before Netspace increased. Chia now has somewhere on the order of 300,000 - 400,000 full nodes operating on the network (already making it more decentralized than Bitcoin) and is approaching 36EiB of space. The "green" benefit of Chia is that you don't throw away the proofs that get generated like you do with Bitcoin mining and instead you can keep them for many years and potentially decades. This is where a lot of the power savings come from. Take a look at https://chiapower.org/ to understand the power usage compared to existing cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
> or example, a home NAS system that may currently only be using a small portion of it's capacity. People can then slowly fill that space overtime and potentially make some money from their unused space.
using my spare disks like this does not make sense when it apparently burns them out very quickly. i doubt i would recoup even the cost of a new drive
using my spare disks like this does not make sense when it apparently burns them out very quickly. i doubt i would recoup even the cost of a new drive
Plotting, or generating proofs, is what destroys SSDs, afterwards the plots are stored on disk and aren't read/write intensive. Think of it as printing bingo cards (plotting) and then sticking them in a file cabinet (farming). Your printer consumes ink and electricity, but keeping all your printed off bingo cards only costs you the space the file cabinet takes up and maybe the lights you turn on to look for winning cards when they get called.
So it’s just internet bingo?
Does the network do anything useful with all the HDD space it takes up like decentralised storage ?
It prevents transactions from being double-spent, like all cryptocurrency. Whether that's useful is up to you.
This is only really true when plotting to consumer grade SSDs, which are limited in the number of writes that they can support. NAS systems usually contain mechanical HDDs and can handle the write load of Chia without issue.
I think this was missed in this whole issue. I'm not arguing for or against Chia, but basically in order to bootstrap a mining operation faster, miners were generating the initial files on a much faster SSD and then transferring to HDD. The initial bootstrap ("plotting") is very write intensive, and thus destroys the SSD. HDD do not have the same sensitivity to write heavy workloads.
So if one simply plotted very slowly on an HDD with the spare space they had, it would not likely impact the expected lifespan, and they could earn a few pennies for their efforts. However the issue with all of these crypto efforts is that systems naturally trend towards centralization for reasons of efficiency. The best systems have some balance between the two. It's simply not worth it for most people to plot 100gb of free space on their laptop for Chia and earn a few cents per month. So it only makes sense for miners to do at scale.
So if one simply plotted very slowly on an HDD with the spare space they had, it would not likely impact the expected lifespan, and they could earn a few pennies for their efforts. However the issue with all of these crypto efforts is that systems naturally trend towards centralization for reasons of efficiency. The best systems have some balance between the two. It's simply not worth it for most people to plot 100gb of free space on their laptop for Chia and earn a few cents per month. So it only makes sense for miners to do at scale.
Yeah plotting on a laptop with a 100GB free is not worth it (especially since they typically have consumer ssds in them), but there is a lot of spare storage space on servers/external drives owned by individuals or companies globally speaking. This global storage distribution that already exists and the fact that no specialized hardware (ASICs) are needed is why Chia has been able to become more decentralized than any other cryptocurrency currently.
It will be interesting to see how things centralize or decentralize going forward. When I think of the lottery I'm always amazed by the number of people that play it even with the extraordinarily low odds of winning that exist. I think there will be some equilibrium that's found for the global number of operating nodes that will be a function on the odds of finding a proof and Chia's price.
It will be interesting to see how things centralize or decentralize going forward. When I think of the lottery I'm always amazed by the number of people that play it even with the extraordinarily low odds of winning that exist. I think there will be some equilibrium that's found for the global number of operating nodes that will be a function on the odds of finding a proof and Chia's price.
> but there is a lot of spare storage space on servers/external drives owned by individuals or companies globally speaking.
Companies have spare storage…but it sure as shit ain’t worth it to them. This is the hubris of most crypto projects: they have no real economic grasp of the problems they jump into. Amazon isn’t going to fuck around with Chia for what amounts to literal dust on their balance sheet. Businesses aren’t going to jeopardize their core competency for a couple of bucks. And the average Joe doesn’t actually have external storage space. Spotify, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. It’s all professional miners. Chia is not decentralized.
> When I think of the lottery I'm always amazed by the number of people that play it even with the extraordinarily low odds of winning that exist.
The payoff for the lottery is HUGE. So even though the EV is negative, people still do it. The payoff for Chia is comparatively small. People won’t (and don’t) care.
Companies have spare storage…but it sure as shit ain’t worth it to them. This is the hubris of most crypto projects: they have no real economic grasp of the problems they jump into. Amazon isn’t going to fuck around with Chia for what amounts to literal dust on their balance sheet. Businesses aren’t going to jeopardize their core competency for a couple of bucks. And the average Joe doesn’t actually have external storage space. Spotify, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. It’s all professional miners. Chia is not decentralized.
> When I think of the lottery I'm always amazed by the number of people that play it even with the extraordinarily low odds of winning that exist.
The payoff for the lottery is HUGE. So even though the EV is negative, people still do it. The payoff for Chia is comparatively small. People won’t (and don’t) care.
> Companies have spare storage…but it sure as shit ain’t worth it to them. This is the hubris of most crypto projects: they have no real economic grasp of the problems they jump into. Amazon isn’t going to fuck around with Chia for what amounts to literal dust on their balance sheet. Businesses aren’t going to jeopardize their core competency for a couple of bucks. And the average Joe doesn’t actually have external storage space. Spotify, iCloud, Dropbox, etc. It’s all professional miners. Chia is not decentralized.
Which companies will adopt it and which ones won't is probably hard to determine from the outside. It should be a fairly objective evaluation though internally for a company in terms of what hardware the company currently has and what it will cost to farm Chia and what future expected value for Chia may be. Chia has somewhere between 300K - 400K full nodes operating on the network. That is objectively more decentralized than Bitcoin that has somewhere on the order of 40K - 80K full nodes the last time I checked. So I would say Chia is the most decentralized network I currently know of.
> The payoff for the lottery is HUGE. So even though the EV is negative, people still do it. The payoff for Chia is comparatively small. People won’t (and don’t) care.
That will be a function of the price of Chia. As Chia's price increases more and more people will want to get into that lottery. A lot more people will consider farming some plots of Chia if one XCH is worth $50K compared to $250.
Which companies will adopt it and which ones won't is probably hard to determine from the outside. It should be a fairly objective evaluation though internally for a company in terms of what hardware the company currently has and what it will cost to farm Chia and what future expected value for Chia may be. Chia has somewhere between 300K - 400K full nodes operating on the network. That is objectively more decentralized than Bitcoin that has somewhere on the order of 40K - 80K full nodes the last time I checked. So I would say Chia is the most decentralized network I currently know of.
> The payoff for the lottery is HUGE. So even though the EV is negative, people still do it. The payoff for Chia is comparatively small. People won’t (and don’t) care.
That will be a function of the price of Chia. As Chia's price increases more and more people will want to get into that lottery. A lot more people will consider farming some plots of Chia if one XCH is worth $50K compared to $250.
> Chia has somewhere between 300K - 400K full nodes operating on the network. That is objectively more decentralized than Bitcoin that has somewhere on the order of 40K - 80K full nodes the last time I checked. So I would say Chia is the most decentralized network I currently know of.
And Amazon has millions of nodes. That doesn’t make them decentralized.
We have no idea who owns the nodes, or what the concentration of ownership is for the top X%
And Amazon has millions of nodes. That doesn’t make them decentralized.
We have no idea who owns the nodes, or what the concentration of ownership is for the top X%
Chia's nodes are not all running in the same data centers and owned by a single company like Amazon's. To imply that is disingenuous at best. They are operating all over the globe in independently owned data centers and people's private residences. Geo-location by IP will give a fairly good indication of that, but even just a simple survey of farmers from forums, chat, reddit, etc will give you a feel for the heavy presence throughout Asia, Australia, Europe and the US. Also, you can look at the number of unique pool public keys to get a feel for the ownership decentralization. (https://www.chiaexplorer.com/charts/networkDecentralisation) While not perfect, people do not tend to create lots and lots of pool public keys. Therefore, one can be relatively confident that the network has a high degree of decentralization.
>very write intensive, and thus destroys the SSD
I'm not going to argue about how Chia Coin works, but I'm always skeptical of claims about excessive writes destroying SSDs.
From what I understand, this is mostly unfounded fear based on the fact that earlier MLC cells were specced for a minimum of 10,000 write cycles and people extrapolated 5-10 year life expectancies from that. In practice, though, testing showed that the typical cell could be rewritten around 1,000,000 times, and the controllers would just route around the weaker cells that died early.
Anecdotally, even though consumer SSDs have been mainstream for around a decade now, I have not heard, IRL or online, of a single person complain that their SSD has failed (manufacturing defects such as the Sandforce firmware bug aside). At the same time, I've personally witnessed dozens of HDD failures.
I don't fully understand why fear around consumer SSDs is still a thing, but I suspect it's exactly the same "Reddit expert" social dynamic that drives the advice around thermal paste application.
I'm not going to argue about how Chia Coin works, but I'm always skeptical of claims about excessive writes destroying SSDs.
From what I understand, this is mostly unfounded fear based on the fact that earlier MLC cells were specced for a minimum of 10,000 write cycles and people extrapolated 5-10 year life expectancies from that. In practice, though, testing showed that the typical cell could be rewritten around 1,000,000 times, and the controllers would just route around the weaker cells that died early.
Anecdotally, even though consumer SSDs have been mainstream for around a decade now, I have not heard, IRL or online, of a single person complain that their SSD has failed (manufacturing defects such as the Sandforce firmware bug aside). At the same time, I've personally witnessed dozens of HDD failures.
I don't fully understand why fear around consumer SSDs is still a thing, but I suspect it's exactly the same "Reddit expert" social dynamic that drives the advice around thermal paste application.
The claim comes from Chia devs themselves, who recommend not using consumer-grade drives due to their low endurance.
> The one thing in common will be that you need high endurance, due to the fact that it take almost ~1.8TB of writes using the -e flag or 1.6TB without that option to create a single K=32 plot.
> Endurance is how much data can be written to the SSD before it wears out. In Chia this is important because a plotting SSD will generally be at 100% duty cycle and writing all day.
> A mixed use or high endurance data center or enterprise SSD is the best choice for plotting. Used SSDs with plenty of endurance can be found for a good value on eBay, Craigslist, or similar.
> Consumer NVMe SSDs are generally not recommended due to the lower endurance, and they often employ caching algorithms to faster media (SLC, or single level cell) for great bursty performance. They do not perform well under heavy workload sustained IO. There are very high performance consumer NVMe SSDs that will offer great plotting performance, but the lower rated endurance in TBW will result in a faster wearout.
https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/wiki/SSD-End...
> The one thing in common will be that you need high endurance, due to the fact that it take almost ~1.8TB of writes using the -e flag or 1.6TB without that option to create a single K=32 plot.
> Endurance is how much data can be written to the SSD before it wears out. In Chia this is important because a plotting SSD will generally be at 100% duty cycle and writing all day.
> A mixed use or high endurance data center or enterprise SSD is the best choice for plotting. Used SSDs with plenty of endurance can be found for a good value on eBay, Craigslist, or similar.
> Consumer NVMe SSDs are generally not recommended due to the lower endurance, and they often employ caching algorithms to faster media (SLC, or single level cell) for great bursty performance. They do not perform well under heavy workload sustained IO. There are very high performance consumer NVMe SSDs that will offer great plotting performance, but the lower rated endurance in TBW will result in a faster wearout.
https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/wiki/SSD-End...
Most drives these days are TLC and and consumers are more likely on QLC. I havent even seen an MLC drive for a while now.
Do you sources for the 1 million writes(erase) on MLC NAND?
I work with enterprise SSDs and that number is well above anything I've seen or heard, even from the manufacturers.
I work with enterprise SSDs and that number is well above anything I've seen or heard, even from the manufacturers.
I can't find a source for my original claim, but based on some real world tests[1] it looks like real-world performance is closer to 50-100k writes.
It seems I misremembered the quantitative data, but the overall qualitative point (SSD Endurance is much, much higher than most "prosumers" believe) is accurate.
[1] https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi...
It seems I misremembered the quantitative data, but the overall qualitative point (SSD Endurance is much, much higher than most "prosumers" believe) is accurate.
[1] https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi...
Generally agree, but Chia plotting is REALLY write intensive workload.
That's not how hard drives work
Chia plotting/farming at hobbyist scale shouldn't wear out anything.
But you're not going to make any money either. According to Chia Calculator 100TiB would generate a whopping $6.17 a day. Just like mining any other crypto it's already out of reach for hobbyists.
https://chiacalculator.com/
https://chiacalculator.com/
Hm. Would be a way to subsidize the price of my NAS expansion though. Only 10TB left makes me want an upgrade to 56 TB more, that's not cheap. Allocating 40TB to chia over a year would cover a good 2.5 * 365 = ~1000 a year. That's a nice subsidy to my NAS setup if all it requires is that I burn out a 1TB SSD.
Your calculations are probably correct, but the whole cryptocurrency fad strikes me as completely ridiculous.
It’s like a farm burning some of their crops to generate a bit of hot air for wind power. Like, you can do it and it gives you that small amount of power but you’re literally destroying the resource and probably cause a lot of waste in the system as a whole.
It’s like a farm burning some of their crops to generate a bit of hot air for wind power. Like, you can do it and it gives you that small amount of power but you’re literally destroying the resource and probably cause a lot of waste in the system as a whole.
Yes, it's probably too late. Or so I've heard.
Chia is like Bingo. Generating the Bingo cards can put a lot of wear on an SSD, but once you have the bingo cards to fill up whatever space you have, you can play for nearly free.
I haven't done the calculation myself, but I've read that it's no longer worthwhile to generate new cards. If so, that means most of the damage has already been done. It's a sunk cost.
But the people who are already in the game can keep playing indefinitely. If prices are too low to even do that, they could back up to tape and go offline for a while.
Chia is like Bingo. Generating the Bingo cards can put a lot of wear on an SSD, but once you have the bingo cards to fill up whatever space you have, you can play for nearly free.
I haven't done the calculation myself, but I've read that it's no longer worthwhile to generate new cards. If so, that means most of the damage has already been done. It's a sunk cost.
But the people who are already in the game can keep playing indefinitely. If prices are too low to even do that, they could back up to tape and go offline for a while.
I agree. I had 20TB extra space on my NAS, so I spent $100 on an entry-level SSD to do plotting. 200 plots later, it's well-used, but not close to dead. I'll probably put my FFIV game files on it to get faster load times.
In the meantime, my operating cost is running the NAS (which was going to be powered up anyway), and some CPU power to handle the farming (not even noticeable on a Ryzen 3900X).
In the meantime, my operating cost is running the NAS (which was going to be powered up anyway), and some CPU power to handle the farming (not even noticeable on a Ryzen 3900X).
No, it's not.
Chia is just "proof of prior work" and as such has the same arms race problem as bitcoin. People aren't just buying a few TB, farming it and being content. They're building farming rigs and piling on the storage constantly. It just consumes power AND storage.
Chia is just "proof of prior work" and as such has the same arms race problem as bitcoin. People aren't just buying a few TB, farming it and being content. They're building farming rigs and piling on the storage constantly. It just consumes power AND storage.
Again, it was only cost-effective to build farming rigs in the very beginning. It is no longer cost-effective to do so. Even major companies will eventually have a tough time competing with the amount of storage space that is already deployed in the world. IIRC is around ~7 Zettabytes. That is the big difference with Bitcoin. Chia is making use of a resource that already exists in the world and is well distributed. Bitcoin ASICs require manufacturing and building machines for the specific purpose of mining Bitcoin and then distributing those machines.
It's not really worth using your free space.
I currently have 4TB of free space. I could plot them which would result in an estimated $7.57/month of income per month.
But.... that's not a constant $7.57 each month. Instead, it's a 1.5% chance of winning a single payout of 2 XCH each month. I could reasonably expect to go five years, never winning a single XCH.
Who knows what the value of XCH will be then. There has been a pretty solid downward trend in price since May, contrary to most coins, which started trending up again.
I currently have 4TB of free space. I could plot them which would result in an estimated $7.57/month of income per month.
But.... that's not a constant $7.57 each month. Instead, it's a 1.5% chance of winning a single payout of 2 XCH each month. I could reasonably expect to go five years, never winning a single XCH.
Who knows what the value of XCH will be then. There has been a pretty solid downward trend in price since May, contrary to most coins, which started trending up again.
It sort of depends on your process right? If you just want to download the client software and point it at your existing drive and start plotting in the background while doing something else, then I tend to think why not? Worse case scenario you continue to get nothing for the space you currently get nothing for. Also, if you want frequent payouts you can join a pool and then you don't have to worry about going 5 years without getting a reward.
Oh, pooling wasn't available when I last researched the topic.
That changes the calculation significantly.
That changes the calculation significantly.
What matters is whether people are churning through hardware, not the scale of the mining operation. Apparently this churn was a problem in the past but it's not anymore. Is this not correct?
> Chia now has somewhere on the order of 300,000 - 400,000 full nodes operating on the network (already making it more decentralized than Bitcoin) and is approaching 36EiB of space.
Are Bitcoin miners as ready to jump ship to the next thing, if it falls out of favor? I don't think so. Chia is not as popular (it is currently #230 on Coinmarketcap).
I also don't think that the power savings of Chia outweigh the space considerations.
Are Bitcoin miners as ready to jump ship to the next thing, if it falls out of favor? I don't think so. Chia is not as popular (it is currently #230 on Coinmarketcap).
I also don't think that the power savings of Chia outweigh the space considerations.
> What people who read this article may not realize is that this is the Chia incentive model actually working properly.
I think that most people commenting here understand that this is the way that proof-of-* systems end up functioning at scale. Participants in these systems are incentivized to cut corners, externalize costs, and generally fuck things up for everyone else.
I think that most people commenting here understand that this is the way that proof-of-* systems end up functioning at scale. Participants in these systems are incentivized to cut corners, externalize costs, and generally fuck things up for everyone else.
I definitely want to destroy my Home Nas in a matter of months to make a little money. This makes perfect sense. It seems like this is the energy problems of bitcoin but now it's physical hardware that is the inefficiency? I guess Bitcoin is similar with old miners becoming defunct etc and the cost of video cards. But intentionally running down the life of hard drives is a innovative new feature I guess
The video cards were being used for ETH and altcoins. Thankfully ETH next upgrade is to turn off proof of work.
> I definitely want to destroy my Home Nas in a matter of months to make a little money.
That won't happen unless your NAS is a bunch of consumer grade SSDs, which I hope it is not.
That won't happen unless your NAS is a bunch of consumer grade SSDs, which I hope it is not.
Even consumer grade HDDs aren't built for sustained full load. I had few die in months just because of active torrents reseeding which is lighter load than chia.
It's almost as if any crypto scheme whose mining entails the massive waste of a resource is going to cause problems.
B..b..but disruption! Blockchain! Crypto!! To the moon!
/s
Crypto is like Eternal September where everyone wields flame throwers.
/s
Crypto is like Eternal September where everyone wields flame throwers.
The interesting part is watching people learn to become junior sysadmins - running Linux for the first time, teaching themselves a bit about storage, learning some shell scripting, dealing with firewall ports. Also learning the hard way not to run every scrap of PowerShell or Bash someone posts on the Internet.
I'd rather they do this with Wordpress or Minecraft
Can’t say I’ve every encountered a truly bad shell script in the wild. Certainly not outright malicious and can’t recall a seriously breaking one either
Cool technology proof of waste is!
Don't worry, apparently they'll be moving to proof of wealth soon which is Much Better.
Proof of waste is also proof of wealth but with extra steps and bigger environmental consequences.
I'm going to build a social network with a coin that works on proof of klout. /s
In all seriousness it would be an interesting social experiment.
In all seriousness it would be an interesting social experiment.
This should be obvious, but anyone can sell any used hardware and claim it's new.
I think the subtext is, "yet another scam perpetuated by the cryptocurrency community at large."
The whole thing started out as a utopian ideal for freeing people from centralized control of transactions and it's turning out to be yet another thing ruined by bad actors.
In that context, buying SSD's from (largely) thieves who (largely) will fleece you in several other ways will not turn out well for you.
The whole thing started out as a utopian ideal for freeing people from centralized control of transactions and it's turning out to be yet another thing ruined by bad actors.
In that context, buying SSD's from (largely) thieves who (largely) will fleece you in several other ways will not turn out well for you.
The chia angle is quite fascinating tho, it is a machine that sucks the lifespan out of memory chips and cashes out with crypto-tokens. It is an invention that gives economic incentive to burn as many memory-cycles as you can before reselling the SSD, such that the recipient of the "new" SSD is ripped off.
It's kind of like how the electricity to create a bitcoin costs more than the market value of the mining reward, the only way to be profitable is to steal electricity. In chia's case, the best way to profit is to steal memory write-cycles.
It's kind of like how the electricity to create a bitcoin costs more than the market value of the mining reward, the only way to be profitable is to steal electricity. In chia's case, the best way to profit is to steal memory write-cycles.
Compared to database-in-datacenter type uses, chia actually puts very little load on ssd's.
All writes are fully streaming, there is no write amplification, and there are lots of random reads involved (which don't really cause much wear/stress).
All writes are fully streaming, there is no write amplification, and there are lots of random reads involved (which don't really cause much wear/stress).
There is still a finite capacity, say 1,000 Terabytes written to a 1TB drive. You can do it as gently as you want, it is still incentivizing the writing and overwriting of exabytes of noise.
The differences is that databases in datacenters tend to run on write-optimized datacenter-grade SSDs while many Chia farmers buy consumer-grade SSDs, run them until they die, then maybe try to resell them.
So, to be clear about what's happening here, you only need an SSD for fast plotting in Chia. So it sounds like they are plotting to fill up HDDs, then reselling the SSDs to hedge against the possibility that the coin's value is not going to rise. It doesn't mean they're getting out of the game. It just means the network space has stabilized, and it's no longer necessary/valuable to plot any more space. But if the exchange rate rises, you can bet the network space rises too, requiring more resource-intensive plotting. That's why Chia is only more efficient than PoW when it isn't in demand.
> That's why Chia is only more efficient than PoW when it isn't in demand.
Actually that's incorrect. Chia is always more efficient than PoW, b/c in PoW everyone is constantly racing to solve every block. (i.e. find the proof) Whoever finds the proof gets the block reward and everyone else just throws away all that work for nothing and then the next race starts for the next block reward.
Contrast that with Chia, where when you are plotting you are storing your proofs in a file for later challenges. You aren't discarding that work and you can hold onto it for a long time (years). It's not until you are "farming" the plot that you start answering challenges. The challenges just translate to simple reads from disk, which are quick constant time lookups. Now it may take you a long time (or never) to find a reward for a single proof, but at least you didn't have to throw all that work away and start over.
Actually that's incorrect. Chia is always more efficient than PoW, b/c in PoW everyone is constantly racing to solve every block. (i.e. find the proof) Whoever finds the proof gets the block reward and everyone else just throws away all that work for nothing and then the next race starts for the next block reward.
Contrast that with Chia, where when you are plotting you are storing your proofs in a file for later challenges. You aren't discarding that work and you can hold onto it for a long time (years). It's not until you are "farming" the plot that you start answering challenges. The challenges just translate to simple reads from disk, which are quick constant time lookups. Now it may take you a long time (or never) to find a reward for a single proof, but at least you didn't have to throw all that work away and start over.
I agree in part and disagree in part.
First, when the network space is growing exponentially, the value of preexisting work is decaying exponentially. I do grant you that completed work is nonzero in value, but during a growth phase its value might as well be zero. Whenever speculators believe the currency will actually have any long term value above its current exchange rate minus the resource costs, then it will be in a growth phase. The total resource consumption during this growth phase, including the supply chains to produce space, need to be studied. Measured in transactions per unit of CO2 emissions, I expect its efficiency to be better only during a phase of stable network space, i.e. when its value is not speculated to be higher than its current value.
Second, not all PoW is discarded. I want to be clear at the outset that this isn't a defense of PoW, but there's a system called AuxPoW which allows work to be applied to multiple chains, modestly improving its efficiency. This mining protocol is being used actively by scrypt hashed coins, e.g. dogecoin and litecoin. I'm certainly not saying PoW is superior to the proof system in Chia, but just that the distinction between them is not as strong as claimed. Nevertheless, both are incredibly destructive and yet interesting.
First, when the network space is growing exponentially, the value of preexisting work is decaying exponentially. I do grant you that completed work is nonzero in value, but during a growth phase its value might as well be zero. Whenever speculators believe the currency will actually have any long term value above its current exchange rate minus the resource costs, then it will be in a growth phase. The total resource consumption during this growth phase, including the supply chains to produce space, need to be studied. Measured in transactions per unit of CO2 emissions, I expect its efficiency to be better only during a phase of stable network space, i.e. when its value is not speculated to be higher than its current value.
Second, not all PoW is discarded. I want to be clear at the outset that this isn't a defense of PoW, but there's a system called AuxPoW which allows work to be applied to multiple chains, modestly improving its efficiency. This mining protocol is being used actively by scrypt hashed coins, e.g. dogecoin and litecoin. I'm certainly not saying PoW is superior to the proof system in Chia, but just that the distinction between them is not as strong as claimed. Nevertheless, both are incredibly destructive and yet interesting.
> First, when the network space is growing exponentially, the value of preexisting work is decaying exponentially. I do grant you that completed work is nonzero in value, but during a growth phase its value might as well be zero. Whenever speculators believe the currency will actually have any long term value above its current exchange rate minus the resource costs, then it will be in a growth phase. The total resource consumption during this growth phase, including the supply chains to produce space, need to be studied. Measured in transactions per unit of CO2 emissions, I expect its efficiency to be better only during a phase of stable network space, i.e. when its value is not speculated to be higher than its current value.
To be fair you'd also have to measure and compare Chia's growth phase to Bitcoin's (or other PoW chains) growth phase as well. This would mean taking into account the manufacturing of the equipment, distribution and deployment costs of ASIC miners, electrical power generation costs, etc. Also, Chia runs on general computing hardware whereas ASICs have to be specifically designed and manufactured and ASICs use a whole lot more electricity than servers with hard drives running Chia. I think a single Ant miner uses something like 32 kWh a day IIRC. Chia has done a lot of power consumption analysis already and you can dive deep on that information yourself over at https://chiapower.org/ if you're curious. There's a dramatic difference between Bitcoin's PoW network and Chia's PoST network.
To be fair you'd also have to measure and compare Chia's growth phase to Bitcoin's (or other PoW chains) growth phase as well. This would mean taking into account the manufacturing of the equipment, distribution and deployment costs of ASIC miners, electrical power generation costs, etc. Also, Chia runs on general computing hardware whereas ASICs have to be specifically designed and manufactured and ASICs use a whole lot more electricity than servers with hard drives running Chia. I think a single Ant miner uses something like 32 kWh a day IIRC. Chia has done a lot of power consumption analysis already and you can dive deep on that information yourself over at https://chiapower.org/ if you're curious. There's a dramatic difference between Bitcoin's PoW network and Chia's PoST network.
Don't SSDs store information about how often they've been written?
Word on the street is that they are resetting the SMART data with OEM firmware tools.
Which is a thing that shouldn't be possible.
If you own the hardware, why shouldn't you be able to control what data it stores?
Laws, standards, regulations?
Easily changed by tweaking firmware, NAND, whatever.
Also, this technology is far from new. When usb thumb drives first became mass-produced a lot of thieves would buy small ones and change the flash memory to read whatever size, and sell them to unsuspecting customers. Man that was forever ago, like back when most were only a few MB in size.
In fact here[1] is an article from two years ago discussing it being done on SSDs as well, and lists several programs to try and find if you've been deceived.
[1] https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterf...
Also, this technology is far from new. When usb thumb drives first became mass-produced a lot of thieves would buy small ones and change the flash memory to read whatever size, and sell them to unsuspecting customers. Man that was forever ago, like back when most were only a few MB in size.
In fact here[1] is an article from two years ago discussing it being done on SSDs as well, and lists several programs to try and find if you've been deceived.
[1] https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterf...
Yes, but I guess that a committed crook can clock drives just as they clock cars.
You are correct; there are even tools to view this information. Perhaps these "refurbishers" know how to reset the health data stored in the SSD.
One would wish there was some burnable fuses there that would note this or general wear level...
On mechanical HDD front at least Hitachi UltraStar 7K3000 drives let you reset everything but the hour meter, so cant totally hide the scam. Doesnt stop people from reselling 2012 3TB 30000 hour drives as "new old stock", auction sites are full of them.
All Hitachis operate like that.
Another cool thing is they don't require a custom tool for that, a standard ATA formst command is enough, and as a last bonus it'll also merge reallocated sector list into factory bad sector list.
They made damn good drives, I wish they were still an independent manufacturer.
Another cool thing is they don't require a custom tool for that, a standard ATA formst command is enough, and as a last bonus it'll also merge reallocated sector list into factory bad sector list.
They made damn good drives, I wish they were still an independent manufacturer.
Yes, to view the stats you can use the SMART commands which is fairly standardized. But the ability is reset is usually some vendor specific commands. Its possible the tools leaked from manufacturing sites.
Reminds me of a shop that would buy used CDs, DVDs, etc, buff the crap out of them, print out new art, shrinkwrap them, then sell them as new (not almost new) on Amazon.
They went out of business after they were blacklisted on Amazon... well sorta. They just came back as a different company a few times.
They went out of business after they were blacklisted on Amazon... well sorta. They just came back as a different company a few times.
Crypto currency is a blight on the world.
> The report even says that the used drives are bought in bulk, renewed later on, and sold as brand new domestically or in China, where the demand for these drives is still very high. So it's probably only a matter of time before these renewed SSDs appear on the Chinese market, and naturally, filter out to other markets like the rest of Asia, Europe, and the U.S.
This confused me a bit; where is "domestically", actually?
The linked article fails to mention it but the original report is from the perspective of and looking at Vietnam.
This confused me a bit; where is "domestically", actually?
The linked article fails to mention it but the original report is from the perspective of and looking at Vietnam.
Important distinction between chia drives used for plotting versus storage. The intensive write use is during plotting and would be on the smallest and fastest drives, in the 1-4TB range. Personal experience, I generated almost 400TB of plots and never had a drive go bad or experience any major performance issues. The massive storage arrays barely get touched, small reads only.
What's the punishment for this kind of sales fraud? Is it even possible to detect that the SMART counters have been reset?
If you were suspicious that a drive was used before you ever plugged it in I bet you could identify it by immediately taking an out-of-the-box SMART snapshot and compare those values to a known good sample for that model drive. Drive manufacturers run tests when new, I doubt these Chia miners are trying to match up the powered on time and cycle count to a legitimate drive, they're probably just setting it to 0 and throwing it in a box.
Unfortunately I highly doubt the majority of these fraudsters will face any real repercussions. Maybe a few victims will be able to successfully issue a chargeback, after many months maybe PayPal and other payment processors will try to freeze some funds, but whatever happens the fraudsters will still come out ahead. They'll just start selling under a new name and continue for another 6 months.
Unfortunately I highly doubt the majority of these fraudsters will face any real repercussions. Maybe a few victims will be able to successfully issue a chargeback, after many months maybe PayPal and other payment processors will try to freeze some funds, but whatever happens the fraudsters will still come out ahead. They'll just start selling under a new name and continue for another 6 months.
> SMART
Any idea how you get known good samples for new drives (without buying a bunch of new drives)?
Any idea how you get known good samples for new drives (without buying a bunch of new drives)?
Now I'm wondering if those cheap Optane drives from mainland China on eBay are not actually new. They do seem too good to be true.
Those might be alright. I recall seeing them a lot before Chia was even a thing too. Allegedly cannibalized from laptops (tiny SSD for system + larger HDD for storage configurations) and office desktop computers.
Thought about getting one for swap, but don’t have a free slot.
Thought about getting one for swap, but don’t have a free slot.
I can't see how it would ever be cost effective to mine on optane. MSRP is ~10x NAND.
tus89(2)
I'm sad about it, but I'm deliberately missing out on a lot of good crypto opportunities because I don't want to spend time sifting through all the fraudulent/scammy ones.
The flash has never been touched right? Aren’t they functionally ‘new’?
https://www.pcgamer.com/chia-mining-can-wreck-a-512gb-ssd-in...
> Chia farming is a write-intensive activity. Speed matters, so the most common strategy is to use an SSD for creating plots, because SSDs are much faster than HDDs, and then transfer them to an HDD once completed.
> Chia is a different animal, though. According to MyDrivers, mining Chia can trash a 512GB in 40 days, while a 1TB SSD lasts twice as long, and a 2TB SSD can give up the ghost in just 160 days, or barely over five months.
> Chia farming is a write-intensive activity. Speed matters, so the most common strategy is to use an SSD for creating plots, because SSDs are much faster than HDDs, and then transfer them to an HDD once completed.
> Chia is a different animal, though. According to MyDrivers, mining Chia can trash a 512GB in 40 days, while a 1TB SSD lasts twice as long, and a 2TB SSD can give up the ghost in just 160 days, or barely over five months.
Let's say I have 1.5TB of ram, can I just do this in tmpfs? The reason this eats SSD is because they have to physically heat a chip to erase, right?
Also, does anyone want to buy my server with space for 1.5TB of ram? The 425W of idle power usage became too much and I am moving to Ryzen 5950k
Also, does anyone want to buy my server with space for 1.5TB of ram? The 425W of idle power usage became too much and I am moving to Ryzen 5950k
Yes, last I checked you need ~300GB of scratch space to plot.
Does that mean that bigger disk doesn't actually increase the speed which currency is generated?
The amount of XCH (Chia's currency) generated is a constant 64 Chia every 10 minutes. You can find this under the Chia Business Whitepaper (https://www.chia.net/assets/Chia-Business-Whitepaper-2021-02...) in the section "Post-launch Chia Emission Schedule". If you have a bigger disk that is filled with plots, then you are increasing the security of the network and thereby increasing the odds that you will win the block reward.
For example, if you had 36EiB of space filled with plots then you would be equal to the entirety of the current Netspace of the Chia Network. (https://www.chiaexplorer.com/blockchain/blocks) So you would win the reward half the time and the rest of the network would win the reward the other half of the time. (i.e. 32 XCH every 10 minutes) Of course, this is an absurd example, as to obtain that amount of space it would probably cost you on the order of $20 billion just to procure the equipment, but at least it should give you an idea about how disk size works in regards to Chia.
For example, if you had 36EiB of space filled with plots then you would be equal to the entirety of the current Netspace of the Chia Network. (https://www.chiaexplorer.com/blockchain/blocks) So you would win the reward half the time and the rest of the network would win the reward the other half of the time. (i.e. 32 XCH every 10 minutes) Of course, this is an absurd example, as to obtain that amount of space it would probably cost you on the order of $20 billion just to procure the equipment, but at least it should give you an idea about how disk size works in regards to Chia.
A bigger disk means you can store more "plots", which are the the files necessary for proof-of-storage, and thus makes it more likely that you will earn a block reward.. But in order to first generate these plots, you have to "farm" them which is a very write intensive process which is ultimately what is at focus here.
The creation of these files requires so much writing that you are basically writing as fast as your CPU can, until the drive dies.
The creation of these files requires so much writing that you are basically writing as fast as your CPU can, until the drive dies.
You'd be limited by write speed.
The opposite of this. Chia is rather aggressive about issuing writes to disk and quickly chews through consumer grade SSDs' write endurance.
For something that was supposed to be more “green” this seems like a very obvious oversight
If you want some new crypto to succeed, it must have at least one blatant lie on the first page of its white paper. Otherwise no "investor" will buy the stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
"Dishonesty? In my crypto? It's more likely than you think."
"Dishonesty? In my crypto? It's more likely than you think."
Reminds me of the argument this guy was making recently https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/link-global-bitcoin-m...
> "We look at, OK, what can we do to use this in a beneficial way … I don't want to say we're in the business of methane destruction, but we're in the business of beneficial use of that potential methane-generating source. You combust it properly. You don't flare it, and you control those emissions," Jenkins said.
> "We look at, OK, what can we do to use this in a beneficial way … I don't want to say we're in the business of methane destruction, but we're in the business of beneficial use of that potential methane-generating source. You combust it properly. You don't flare it, and you control those emissions," Jenkins said.
The article isn't exactly clear what's happening. Are they extracting natural gas (methane) that would normally stay in the ground, or are they flaring natural gas that would otherwise have leaked out?
Yeah, the plotting thing is really bad.
But thankfully: 1. the network has mostly stopped expanding 2. I think there's a pretty good ramdisk plotter now for big miners
But thankfully: 1. the network has mostly stopped expanding 2. I think there's a pretty good ramdisk plotter now for big miners
There's a difference between creating new "plots" to farm and farming an existing plot. The former is very write intensive, the latter is a pure read workload.
Still, one of the coin's selling points is that low-energy for farming and verifying transactions. That is kind of moot if there's an economic incentive to burn SSDs to get your hands on these eco-friendly coins.
Well, yeah, that's why you use hard drives for storing plots (waiting for the distributed lottery to draw your plot's number) while continuously generating new lottery tickets on the SSDs.
Not according to this https://www.tomshardware.com/news/chia-crypto-farming-can-de...
As we dove into the chia coin rabbit hole to figure out just what was going on, it came to our attention that people are using firmware tools to reset SMART counters on drives … rolling back the odometer, so to speak.
Just terrible behavior all around.