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Comment by Aurornis

5 hours ago

> if the scammer bothered to reset the SMART data.

You can't universally reset SMART data on an SSD unless you happen to have a model where factory tools are available on the internet or something.

You don't need a universal tool. You just need one that resets the drives you're selling.

I've worked with a vendor who were a bit fast and loose with what NAND / controller / firmware they considered "ACME SC9000" SSDs to be. Because of this, some of the drives actually had bad configurations. They gave us tools to query / reset / update the firmware on these drives. The SMART data was one of the options you could reset.

Given the number of $10 self-reporting "10TB" USB drives out there, if there's enough of a profit incentive and volume of drives, you can't rule out a SMART reset drive.