Mastodawn

It would seem that some of my ancient 10+ year old SSDs in the 60-128gb range are experiencing sudden death after sitting around for years. They're basically bricked and can't be written to.

EDIT: This should be a PSA. SSDs are not for cold storage.

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🇺🇦 haxadecimal Nov 23

@Lydie
SSDs are rated to retain data unpowered for six months for consumer grade devices, and for three months for enterprise grade. They need to stay powered up so that they can scrub (refresh) memory cells that lose their charge over time. This is because each data bit is actually stored by a surprisingly small number of electrons in modern NAND flash devices.
Spinning drives, despite their potential mechanical failure modes, are actually better for cold storage than SSDs.

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Alex Kahn Nov 23

@brouhaha @Lydie is that true for little thumb drives too?

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🇺🇦 haxadecimal Nov 23

@akahn @Lydie
Historically those used flash rated for longer data retention, but I don't know about any recent stuff. They probably use the same NAND chips as SSDs. In the absence of a manufacturer spec for retention life, I wouldn't trust them for long-term storage.

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Jernej Simončič �

@brouhaha @akahn @Lydie I wouldn't trust thumb drives for anything other than carrying files around – saw too many drives that died suddenly with the only copy of important file on them (not to mention users that lost them).