Chia network not so green? CPU mining reportedly destroys SSD in weeks

If you want to save the world, it’s going to take a lot of hard drives.

Chia Network (CHIA), which emerged onto the cryptocurrency scene with the promise of cleaning up the environmental mess left by Bitcoin (BTC) miners, may not be as green as it seems.

Unlike Bitcoin, Ether (ETH) and others, Chia Network mines coins using an alternative to the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW). Chia coins are produced using only hard drive storage, and don’t require specialized ASIC hardware, or GPUs.

But reports coming out of China point suggest that saving the environment isn’t as easy as it sounds when it comes to crypto. According to local outlet Fast Technology, the shelf-life of a standard 512GB SSD would be worn out after just 40 days of continuous CHIA mining, based on a data write volume of 256TB in that time period.

A 1TB hard drive would last around 80 days, while a 2TB hard drive would be expected to last around 160 days. Under normal conditions, such pieces of hardware would be expected to last the average customer around a decade.

Once a hard drive exceeds a certain data write volume, its consumer warranty protections become null and void. Hard drives typically ship with anywhere from 3–5 year warranties, yet Chia mining could invalidate such warranties in just over a month.

Fast Technology reports that hard drive manufacturers have begun rewriting the terms of their warranty agreements to reflect the reality of their components being used in CHIA mining. When CHIA commenced trading in early May, Chinese retailers suffered a shortage of hard drives which eventually pushed the cost of high-capacity drives (16TB) up to 6,000 yuan ($933).

iBTC 並非有關信息的提供者,不會為客戶或任何第三者對於該信息的(包括但不限於)正確性、品質、準確性、安全性、完整性、可靠性、性能、及時性、報價或持續可用性負責。本頁任何內容都不是投資建議

下載iBTC 手機APP
感受最佳交易體驗