Hard disks (multi-platter/multi head) can be refurbished in many cases by deactivating a head or a couple (a platter) of course re-labeling it to a lower capacity, I think it was a thing in non first-world markets.

There was a recent thread post about a counterfeit external USB hard disk, though, JFYI:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22019079

https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/198-chinese-magical-hard-dri...