Solved Has anyone done extensive research into long term data storage on an SSD?


hsehestedt said:
So, let me clarify, because there seems to be some general confusion as what I am asking.

Suppose that buy a battery. That battery will have a shelf life. After x number of years, the battery will no longer be good because it very slowly over time depletes it's charge even though it is not connected to anything that draws power. This effect is known as "self discharge".

In very broad terms, an SSD works much the same. When you "write" data to an SSD you are placing a very tiny charge on memory cells. That's simply how an SSD stores data. The level of that charge can then later be read back to determine the contents of that memory cell. Over time, that charge will dissipate. Normally, this is not an issue so long as power is applied to the SSD on occasion.

My question was simply this: How long does power need to be applied to refresh all the data? Does it happen instantly when power is applied or does this happen only slowly over time as the controller performs tasks in the background?
Click to expand...

I honestly don't think any normal end user can answer this unless they had very specific tools to test for that. I think the answer you seek will need to come from some engineer who's studied this.

All I can say as an end user is I've not seen any noticeable degradation of my drives in daily usage (I've got SSD drives in my systems going back to 2013). On the flipside I don't put them under stress tests in seeing how they still perform. I just use mine in a normal manner of any drive - read, write, move files around when needed.

The other thing I don't do is allow any of my drives to go beyond 70% (usually 60%) full. It's been said once an SSD goes past 70, it starts to slow down and become less efficient.

pureinfotech.com

Why solid-state drive (SSD) performance slows down as it becomes full - Pureinfotech

Ever wondered why your solid-state drive degrades performance over time? Here we look into the problem and what to do to keep drive speedy.
pureinfotech.com pureinfotech.com
 

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hsehestedt said:
Let me start by saying that I hate thumb drives. Even the "fast" ones annoy me. Don't get me wrong, they have their place, but I'm at a point where I have some fairly significant amounts of data that I want to put into long storage.

I'm considering going to NVMe SSDs for this purpose for a few reasons:

1) They are fast - a definite advantage considering that I have many TB of data to archive.
2) They have become what I would consider very affordable now. A good quality 500GB NVMe is now under $40 in the US.
3) They are very small, making organization and storage a breeze.

However, I have some serious questions about long term storage. I know that the specs say that an SSD should be able to retain data for a minimum of 1 year at 30 degrees C, but that retention time drops dramatically with even a few degrees in temperature.

So here is the big question: In order to "refresh" the cells on an SSD, do I merely need to plug the NVMe and give it power for a few seconds or does it need to remain plugged in for an extended period of time so that the controller can go about "touching" every cell on the SSD? I cannot seem to find an answer to this anywhere. If anyone has researched this and found an answer, I would appreciate it if you could share what you have found.
Click to expand...

Did you ever get an answer to this question from your enquiries with the manufacturers you contacted?
 

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Gazumbo said:
Did you ever get an answer to this question from your enquiries with the manufacturers you contacted?
Click to expand...

A bit of searching here is what EaseUS has to say. It seems to be really safe for long term archiving one should create a new archive on media every 3-5 years. I would think this also applies to HDD's as well since they are susceptible to magnetic degradation.

www.easeus.com

Does SSD Need the Power to Retain Data? The Answers Are Here!

Do you plan to keep all the backups on an SSD drive? Do you know how long an SSD can hold the data? If not, read the guide to find if SSDs need the power to retain data. While SSDs are fast, they are built differently from HDDs and come with drawbacks, which you should know to avoid any data...
www.easeus.com www.easeus.com
 

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They are fast. Once per year just copy to another diisk, erase the original data, and rewrite the data.

You might think of cheksumming important files with something likecdcheck for later verification.
 

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