I should also mention, that there is a wild card with farming in general vs. ROI vs. drive longevity. I classify it as a theory that farming is light on drives. Only time will tell. That is largely why I’m hesitant on any big investments on this project. All is not lost though. This issue really only rears its ugly head with the value of chia. If it goes up, a lot of this discussion is moot. But even under a scenario where price stays under $100, there are going to be options. If consumer grade drives turn out not to be practical due to the reasons listed above, then enterprise grade drives that are better suited to 24/7 and temperatures can fit the bill. The question for me is whether consumer grade are going to be a viable option or not. And yes, in the used market, I would be nervous that 18tb or 14tb become synonymous with chia farming and that people will avoid buying just like people don’t want mined GPUs. Sure you can try and convince people that chia farming is light on the drives. I would argue that a seller who didn’t farm a 18tb drive is better to buy used than one that was used for farming. These big capacity drives could be very hard to move in the used market depending on how this goes. Obviously nobody wants/needs to sell now, but if prices go up, then maybe it’s better to sell drives than farm them. That is what I have been finding.
Yes, if chia’s price goes very high again, it would be very wise to sell used HDDs at a premium and stop farming. Provided the new hdd market can’t keep up with the demand.
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