3mo ago

Unpowered SSD endurance investigation finds severe data loss and performance issues

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3mo ago

Unpowered SSD endurance investigation finds severe data loss and performance issues

www.tomshardware.com /pc-components/storage/unpowered-ssd-endurance-investigation-finds-severe-data-loss-and-performance-issues-reminds-us-of-the-importance-of-refreshing-backups

38 comments

Seeing these errors means "the SSD is on its way out," according to HTWingNut.
Since we're simply talking about being unpowered for a while, wouldn't a simple full format fix/reset all ECC errors? No need to scrap the drive.
Surely a cap/transistor temporarily losing charge shouldn't permanently destroy it!
Anyways, HDD for 6-24 months offline data storage, SSD for always-online data storage, and flash if you're a masochist like me.
- I think tape storage has the best longevity in offline data storage, but it's been a while since I checked.
  
  Yeah I believe tape is still king there. LTO is working on some 500+ TB tape for the future IIRC.
  
  Strictly speaking, I think paper beats magnetic tape on longevity.
  Unfortunately, it loses on data density.
  
  Depends on the threat model and how long do you need the data.
  Worked on a place long ago, that anything they needed to save offline from more than a few decades where stored in microfilm, the expectancy there where they would last 80 to 100 years.
  Anything else was pretty much tape.
  You also take in account the technology avaiability. The more complex is to use, harder will it be to reproduce in the future. Even with tapes, you might want to copy the data to another tape/recorder every decade or two, to keep it on par with the technology.
  
  Tape presents its own share of problems. If not strored in some very particular conditions, like temp, humidity, and others that I can't recall, they can stick to tbe adjacent layers, become brittle, curved, etc...
  
  Technically does, but has a very high rate of failure on recovery, you need to recover the entire drive not just a section, and it can take days or weeks to read it back, vs mere hours.
  
  M-Disc
  
  As we all slowly step back from CD-RW, no quick movements.. or was that all just a bad dream?
I'm sure USB pen drives are even worse.
- I actually just pulled some files off of one from 2004-ish. No issues. Found another one from 2008 about a year ago that had no issues as well. Not sure why… maybe because they were so much lower capacity? Like, one was 64MB and that was huge back then.
  
  They were slc, so the charge ratio was much higher.
  Mlc/tlc/qlc drives have to measure a current very precisely, up to 16 values of discrimination, any charge degredation doesn't change a 1 to a 0, but a 3 to a 2 to a 1 and given enough time, a zero.
  Also smaller gate dielectric so more leakage.
  
  Those old drives may be using SLC flash. It can have a 20+ year data retention.
  
  I pulled some data off some old Samsung 1TB SSDs that werent powered for 3-4 years without an issue either. I guess they were SLC based on what others are saying.
  I guess it's a your mileage may vary situation depending on the exact drive you purchase and probably other factors too.
- Bog standard? They are more like "god knows what's inside these" and cionsidering I have a solid suspicion there is no god...
  There is a fairly reasonable theory floating around that no name drives have B quality chips, so these may have started with chips that were iffy from the start. Id like to see a test of this type , carried out by Backblaze, with thousands of drives.
Reject flash, return to tape
- The tape is a lie.
  
  I'm making a note here
Does nvme have this issue, too?
- Absolutely. Sata SSD, m.2/nvme, USB thumb drives, it's all just different form factors for nand flash memory.
  
  Figured as much, but I wasn't sure if thre nvme flash was of higher quality with potential benefits like what SLC brings. Thank you.

38 comments