- Laborious drives offered as new contained decade-old internals from beforehand used Seagate and Western Digital items
- SMART information was manipulated to cover prior utilization, masking critical mechanical and browse error points
- Attingo evaluation revealed leftover consumer information, proving zeroing solely touched the beginning of storage sectors
A latest case involving UnionSine-branded exterior arduous drives has raised critical questions in regards to the integrity of some merchandise offered by way of Amazon’s market.
An investigation by information restoration firm Attingo uncovered supposedly “new” arduous drives contained 2.5″ HDDs from main manufacturers like Seagate and Western Digital manufactured over a decade in the past.
These findings contradict the product labelling, which lists a producing date from spring 2025.
Used drives masquerading as new
The drives had been offered below the identifier HD2510 throughout Amazon’s Tech Week promotional interval, and had been assumed by consumers to be new transportable HDDs appropriate for normal backup and storage use.
Attingo’s teardown of the drives revealed not simply their age, but additionally indicators of earlier use, with the proof extending past the {hardware} identifiers.
The corporate mentioned among the HDDs nonetheless contained fragments of consumer information, with solely the start of the info fields zeroed out.
This follow, generally used to simulate full information erasure, did not eradicate all traces of prior use.
One recovered XML file even contained a timestamp from Might 2024, pointing to very latest exercise inconsistent with a supposedly unused machine.
Among the information traces had been linked to TV recording techniques, suggesting that the drives had as soon as been in operational environments.
Attingo additionally famous inconsistencies in SMART (Self-Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting Expertise) information, which is utilized by working techniques to evaluate arduous drive well being.
Though the displayed working hours prompt zero utilization, different key metrics, such because the learn error price, informed a special story.
This type of manipulation has been seen earlier than in fraud circumstances involving repurposed HDDs, particularly these offered by way of grey market channels.
The presence of quite a few learn errors and mechanical anomalies conflicted with the SMART standing, indicating a contemporary drive.
The truth that this problem emerged from a well known retail platform, slightly than a distinct segment market or obscure on-line retailer, is of explicit concern.
Attingo CEO Markus Häfele expressed alarm on the findings, saying the state of affairs was not solely deceptive to shoppers but additionally doubtlessly harmful from an information safety standpoint.
“It is sadly well-known that used {hardware} is often declared as new on platforms like eBay or in direct imports from Asian retailers – however the truth that that is taking place systematically as a part of a extensively marketed Amazon marketing campaign is really scandalous,” Häfele mentioned.
Although the incident has sparked renewed concern in regards to the reliability of NAS HDDs and exterior storage gadgets supplied by way of third-party sellers on-line, Amazon has but to answer the allegations.
By way of Computerbase
