- Hard drives sold as new contained decade-old internals from previously used Seagate and Western Digital units
- SMART data was manipulated to hide prior usage, masking serious mechanical and read error issues
- Attingo analysis revealed leftover user data, proving zeroing only touched the start of storage sectors
A recent case involving UnionSine-branded external hard drives has raised serious questions about the integrity of some products sold through Amazon’s marketplace.
An investigation by data recovery company Attingo uncovered supposedly “new” hard drives contained 2.5″ HDDs from major brands like Seagate and Western Digital manufactured over a decade ago.
These findings contradict the product labelling, which lists a manufacturing date from spring 2025.
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Used drives masquerading as new
The drives were sold under the identifier HD2510 during Amazon’s Tech Week promotional period, and were assumed by buyers to be new portable HDDs suitable for regular backup and storage use.
Attingo’s teardown of the drives revealed not just their age, but also signs of previous use, with the evidence extending beyond the hardware identifiers.
The company said some of the HDDs still contained fragments of user data, with only the beginning of the data fields zeroed out.
This practice, commonly used to simulate full data erasure, failed to eliminate all traces of prior use.
One recovered XML file even contained a timestamp from May 2024, pointing to very recent activity inconsistent with a supposedly unused device.
Some of the data traces were linked to TV recording systems, suggesting that the drives had once been in operational environments.
Attingo also noted inconsistencies in SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data, which is used by operating systems to assess hard drive health.
Although the displayed operating hours suggested zero usage, other key metrics, such as the read error rate, told a different story.
This kind of manipulation has been seen before in fraud cases involving repurposed HDDs, especially those sold through gray market channels.
The presence of numerous read errors and mechanical anomalies conflicted with the SMART status, indicating a fresh drive.
The fact that this issue emerged from a well-known retail platform, rather than a niche marketplace or obscure online store, is of particular concern.
Attingo CEO Markus Häfele expressed alarm at the findings, saying the situation was not only misleading to consumers but also potentially dangerous from a data protection standpoint.
“It’s unfortunately well known that used hardware is occasionally declared as new on platforms like eBay or in direct imports from Asian retailers – but the fact that this is happening systematically as part of a widely advertised Amazon campaign is truly scandalous,” Häfele said.
Though the incident has sparked renewed concern about the reliability of NAS HDDs and external storage devices offered through third-party sellers online, Amazon has yet to respond to the allegations.
Via Computerbase
