SSD-maker, Asgard has launched a new production plan to manufacture SSDs for the mining (farming) market in the form of the ChiaCoin Mining Disk Production Project. This lineup will address the market recently brought about with the introduction of ChiaCoin by BitTorrent founder, Bram Cohen. Unlike Bitcoin, this new cryptocurrency uses storage devices instead of GPUs/CPUs and is being touted as a stable, eco-friendly alternative to existing digital currencies.
Asgard hasn’t provided many details about the project, but we can assume that these drives will come with higher durability than standard SSDs and offer high read/write speeds, of course, at a premium. The price of traditional mechanical drives has reportedly soared in the Asian market after the introduction of ChiaCoin.
However, it’s no secret that SSDs based on QLC, and to some extent, even TLC have limited lifelines, not quite on par with mechanical drives. Therefore, these mining drives are bound to end up on the 2nd-hand market once they outlive their usefulness, i.e, become slower or start producing errors. While the eventual impact will depend on the success of ChiaCoin, it’s still a reason for concern for consumers used to buying hardware from markets such as eBay and AliExpress. (Zgardensantamonica)
