Seagate's fraudulent HDD scandal expands: IronWolf Pro hard drives reportedly also affected

Seagate Ironwolf Pro 20TB NAS HDD
(Image credit: Seagate)

A scheme involving the resale of used Seagate Exos enterprise-grade hard drives as new was uncovered earlier this month, but we have now learned that it reportedly affects not only Exos HDDs but also Seagate's IronWolf Pro HDDs, according to an investigation conducted by Lutz Labs from Heise.de. Fraudsters erase usage records, alter serial numbers, and modify labels to deceive buyers, but it is still possible to determine that the particular drive had been in use, and by now, there are multiple ways to detect such falsified HDDs.

Both Exos and IronWolf Pro are extremely reliable hard disk drives. Seagate's Exos HDDs are aimed at enterprises and hyperscale cloud service providers and are meant to operate 24/7, whereas IronWolf Pro is designed for enterprise-grade NAS environments that also work in 24/7 mode. While these drives share a lot in terms of hardware platforms, they have different firmware. Given the reliability, performance, and capacity points of IronWolf Pro HDDs, they are good candidates for use in Chia mining. As such, the current theory is that Chia miners are selling off used hard drives from mining farms, and it would make sense they may have both Exos and IronWolf Pro devices.

Falsified Seagate's Exos and IronWolf Pro hard drives are sold by retailers in different countries and generally look almost like new. The drives appear unused to the software because their internal usage logs, specifically SMART parameters, were wiped. However, a closer look at these drives may reveal slight dents and scratches on the chassis as well as scratches on their SATA connector, which are clear signs of previous use.

Also, the QR codes on counterfeit units have been tampered with. Instead of linking to Seagate's usual verification page, they redirect to a warranty check that does not display the serial number or storage capacity, making it harder to verify authenticity. Since the labels on the drives are false, there are slight variations in label alignment and scaling. Finally, tools like smartmontools that can read Seagate's FARM (field-accessible reliability metrics) values reveal that some had operated for over 50,000 hours.

So far, no similar cases have been reported for Toshiba or Western Digital. However, detecting tampering in these brands is more difficult since they lack Seagate's FARM values (which are only available on Exos, IronWolf, IronWolf Pro, and perhaps SkyHawk drives, according to Heise.de), which store extensive usage history.

Seagate has acknowledged the problem, stating that fraudulent practices involving IronWolf-series drives are not new. The company is conducting an active investigation into how these modified drives enter the market.

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Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • markdj57
    I purchased a Seagate iron wolf from Amazon UK, it came from a 3rd party, it was clearly 2nd hand and made weird ticking noises. Returned it and got a refund.
    Reply
  • Sluggotg
    I get most of my drives from Newegg, (sometimes Best Buy). Amazon has some really dicey vendors selling on it. Fraud is rampant on Amazon. 50,000 hours of wear on a Hard Drive is 5.7 years. Those drives are not reliable. I am always amazed at how scammers do things like this and never seem to actually go to jail or even get caught in the act.
    Reply
  • steviant
    Seagate's fraudulent HDD scandal expands: IronWolf Pro hard drives reportedly also affected
    The title makes it sound like Seagate is the perpetrator, rather than another victim of this fraud. The only reason I even read the article was because of the blatantly misleading title that attributes the fradulent HDDs to Seagate.

    Do better.
    Reply
  • dosmastrify
    Maybe I'm the idiot here. Why not make the stats of the drive like an odometer that can only go UP, not be erased
    Reply
  • Mr Majestyk
    Sluggotg said:
    I get most of my drives from Newegg, (sometimes Best Buy). Amazon has some really dicey vendors selling on it. Fraud is rampant on Amazon. 50,000 hours of wear on a Hard Drive is 5.7 years. Those drives are not reliable. I am always amazed at how scammers do things like this and never seem to actually go to jail or even get caught in the act.
    scAmazon would be a more apt name. They are a disgrace and the Feds do little to reign them in.
    Reply
  • Takeoa
    dosmastrify said:
    Maybe I'm the idiot here. Why not make the stats of the drive like an odometer that can only go UP, not be erased
    My apologies to tell you this, but you live in a parallel world if you believe that Odometers can’t be tempered with.
    Reply
  • AkroZ
    dosmastrify said:
    Maybe I'm the idiot here. Why not make the stats of the drive like an odometer that can only go UP, not be erased
    Odometers can be changed, in cars the fraud is estimated between 5% and 12%, and between 30% and 50% for trans country cars.

    For hard drives even if you go the hard way of using fusing memory, the communication protocol used to provide the monitoring data is managed by a program (firmware) which can be changed to provide other values.
    Reply
  • Justin Goldberg
    Mr Majestyk said:
    scAmazon would be a more apt name. They are a disgrace and the Feds do little to reign them in.

    Hard disk drives do have certain pieces of data that cannot be accessed with software. So it is possible.

    I better solution is just wholesale abandon Seagate altogether, especially with their CAV CLV problems.
    Reply
  • maffey48
    steviant said:

    Seagate's fraudulent HDD scandal expands: IronWolf Pro hard drives reportedly also affected
    The title makes it sound like Seagate is the perpetrator, rather than another victim of this fraud. The only reason I even read the article was because of the blatantly misleading title that attributes the fradulent HDDs to Seagate.

    Do better.
    I agree 100%. It's misleading at best and downright libelous clickbait at worst.
    I honestly thought one of the best and most reputable businesses in the industry was guilty of extremely foul play.
    Reply
  • Jtu
    Honestly after working in enterprise IT for a couple of decades, I would trust an EXOS drive with 50000 hours on it more than a new Ironwolf. These drives are absolute beasts, we beat the crap out if them 24/7 for the entire 5 year replacement cycle and had failues in sub-5% range. I've bought MDD refurbished drives from Amazon knowing full well that they are likely to be in this situation and am perfectly comfortable putting them into my home NAS in a RAID array.
    Reply