>I strongly suspect a similar market will shortly exist for aged out SSD. Once a SSD dies, simply modify its bios to report its brand new and error free, and se

>I strongly suspect a similar market will shortly exist for aged out SSD. Once a SSD dies, simply modify its bios to report its brand new and error free, and sell it at full price on CL / ebay / etc >I can't say I've ever heard a report of this kind of behavior in old fashioned rotating rust hard drives. Then again the major manufacturers all have some story or another about shipping broken garbage fresh from the factory, they don't need additional crooks to rip off the endusers. I know that practice is thriving in the spinning rust market. Usually the drives are relabeled as some brand you've never heard of, but sometimes not. I've been burned when I was younger and cheaper. (note, I've never seen a drive sold as a larger drive, as is common with SD cards... but that's 'cause filling the drive is a very standard minimum test for a hard drive. Generally speaking, these are drives with a bunch of bad sectors that are 're-mapped') To prevent this sort of thing, standard procedure, when dealing with used drives, is to ask for the serial number. With that info, you can go to the western digital or seagate website and check the warranty status. If it's got a warranty, they probably haven't screwed with the firmware to make a bad drive look good (because why would you, when you can return it to the manufacturer and get an actual good drive.) If the drive isn't under warranty, don't buy it unless your time is free. If your time is free, don't buy it even then, unless you trust the seller a lot and are willing to spend a lot of effort on burn-in during the period where the seller will accept returns. Warranty service for both Seagate and western digital is very good. It doesn't matter how you got your hands on the drive; if it's within warranty, you can ship it back and they send you a working refurb (often of a newer model, if you ship back an old drive.) Same is true for initial manufacturing defects. /never/ return a drive to a retailer (unless you are getting a refund, not an exchange) - when you exchange a drive at a retailer, they just give you the drive that the last guy exchanged. Send it to the manufacturer; they actually know how to test the things.