What you need to know
- Chia crypto miners are selling used SSDs to try to make up for their losses.
- SSDs used to mine Chia will have a dramatically shorter lifespan than new drives.
- The price of Chia dropped by 87% compared to May 2021.
The value of cryptocurrency can fluctuate quickly, which can cause miners to rush to cover losses. Chia, a cryptocurrency that relies on hard drive space rather than a CPU or GPU, has rapidly fallen since its peak earlier this year. This drop has sent Chia miners to sell SSDs to make back what they can (via VNExpress).
Unlike the most popular forms of cryptocurrency, Chia requires a large amount of hard drive space rather than a powerful CPU or GPU. Some have called it a "green" cryptocurrency for requiring less power than other currencies, though that's a topic of debate.
Using an SSD to mine Chia is extremely taxing on the drive. Hoang Tuan, an owner of a computer store in Ho Chi Minh City told VNExpress that a 1TB SSD that was used for Chia mining would only last around 80 days. That's compared to the 10 years of use you'd see from drives in other use cases, according to Tuan.
In some instances, people are selling the SSDs while claiming that they are new. This could cause disappointment as someone would expect a new drive to last years rather than months.
Following its launch in May, Chia hit a price of $1,685. It has since plummeted to as low as $212 at the end of August 2021, which is less than 20% of what the currency was worth at launch.
While the price of a used SSD may be tempting, it is likely a better option to pick up one of the best SSDs as a new piece of hardware. New SSDs should have a much longer lifespan and be under warranty.
