- 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 severe mechanical and browse error points
- Attingo evaluation revealed leftover person information, proving zeroing solely touched the beginning of storage sectors
A latest case involving UnionSine-branded exterior onerous drives has raised severe questions in regards to the integrity of some merchandise offered by Amazon’s market.
An investigation by information restoration firm Attingo uncovered supposedly “new” onerous 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 have been offered below the identifier HD2510 throughout Amazon’s Tech Week promotional interval, and have been assumed by patrons 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 person information, with solely the start of the information fields zeroed out.
This apply, generally used to simulate full information erasure, didn’t remove all traces of prior use.
One recovered XML file even contained a timestamp from Could 2024, pointing to very latest exercise inconsistent with a supposedly unused gadget.
Among the information traces have been linked to TV recording programs, 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 programs to evaluate onerous drive well being.
Though the displayed working hours steered zero utilization, different key metrics, such because the learn error price, informed a distinct story.
This sort of manipulation has been seen earlier than in fraud circumstances involving repurposed HDDs, particularly these offered by grey market channels.
The presence of quite a few learn errors and mechanical anomalies conflicted with the SMART standing, indicating a recent drive.
The truth that this situation emerged from a well known retail platform, reasonably 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 scenario was not solely deceptive to shoppers but additionally probably harmful from a knowledge safety standpoint.
“It is sadly well-known that used {hardware} is sometimes declared as new on platforms like eBay or in direct imports from Asian retailers – however the truth that that is occurring systematically as a part of a broadly marketed Amazon marketing campaign is actually scandalous,” Häfele mentioned.
Although the incident has sparked renewed concern in regards to the reliability of NAS HDDs and exterior storage units provided by third-party sellers on-line, Amazon has but to reply to the allegations.
Through Computerbase
