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Don't SSDs store information about how often they've been written?
by lordnacho 5y ago
Don't SSDs store information about how often they've been written?
- ectopod 5y agoYes, but I guess that a committed crook can clock drives just as they clock cars.
- rsync 5y agoWord on the street is that they are resetting the SMART data with OEM firmware tools.
- dboreham 5y agoWhich is a thing that shouldn't be possible.
- jsploit 5y agoIf you own the hardware, why shouldn't you be able to control what data it stores?
- wmf 5y agoIf you own a car, why shouldn't you be able to reset the odometer? Because as a society we've decided not to make it too easy to hide wear.
- jsploit 5y agoI agree that it shouldn't be "too easy" as a fraud deterrent, but making it impossible seems like an overreach of consumer protection.
- MichaelZuo 5y agoLaws, standards, regulations?
- Newtonip 5y agoYou are correct; there are even tools to view this information. Perhaps these "refurbishers" know how to reset the health data stored in the SSD.
- Ekaros 5y agoOne would wish there was some burnable fuses there that would note this or general wear level...
- rasz 5y agoOn 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.
- kasabali 5y agoAll 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.
- pkaye 5y agoYes, 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.
- effingwewt 5y agoEasily 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-counterfeit-usb-flash-drives-bought-from-ebay-with-h2testw/ https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterf...