IT House June 7 news Foreign media Neowin reported that the Chia cryptocurrency came into the limelight a few months ago, when people noticed that it was using idle storage space for mining, causing a shortage of storage hard drives. Clearly, storage manufacturers are aware of the situation, and some of them have started to react by making rather unreasonable changes to normal users. Among them, PNY has recently been found to reduce the write endurance of its XLR8 CS3030 series solid state drive , which is expressed in TBW (Terabytes Written), up to 79%. The TBW value shows the estimated amount of data that can be written to the SSD over the life of the hard drive.
The reduced TBW means that those who strictly use SSDs (like miners) and use up their rated durability before the hard drive's five-year warranty will lose the warranty. The company believes that for "consumers who plan to use these SSDs, the warranty period (years) may run out before they reach the TBW threshold." However, the previous TBW rating still applies to drives sold before May 17, 2021.
The following is part of PNY's official statement:
"PNY's changes to its warranty policy for its XLR8 CS3030 SSDs were driven by two factors, namely the use of high-speed, consumer-grade SSDs for Chia trading Rising demand, and an industry-wide shortage of NAND. These changes were announced and made public on May 17, 2021 in the warranty section of the company's website and in the CS3030 product spec sheet."
GALAX GALAX also popped up a warning on its Chinese website, saying that from the date of product purchase, to the limited warranty deadline specified in the warranty policy, because the product has written more than the TBW defined by GALAXY. Data, products that cause SSD slowdown or damage, cannot enjoy the GALAXY after-sales service policy.
As the popularity of Chia coin speculation increases, other large SSD manufacturers are expected to start doing the same.
