SSDs Lose Data If Left Without Power For Just 7 Days

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How many of you have data on an SSD that regularly goes without power for more than seven days at a time. I do, and I haven't had a problem yet. Have any of you lost data?

According to a recent presentation by Seagate's Alvin Cox, who is also chairman of the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (JEDEC), the period of time that data will be retained on an SSD is halved for every 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature in the area where the SSD is stored.
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Hell of a time to be finding this out. After all this time now?

WTF !
 
My computer is never off for more than 10 hours at a time, and my consoles still use mechanical drives. The more important take away here, in my opinion, is why is it still so hard in this day and age to drill the importance of data backup into peoples' minds?
 
Misleading sensational title is misleading and sensational.

The study implies that you'll be storing an enterprise-class SSD in an extreme environment (much higher than 30 degrees C, high humidity) while powered off for long term storage. Who would do that? Nobody.

If you're archiving data, you're going to have that data on a long term archival medium (tape, optical, etc) in a climate controlled environment..
 
The article is confusing.

It starts out by stating that data starts to be lost or corrupted in as little as 7 days.
But then later states that consumer class SSDs start to lose data after 2 years and enterprise after 90 days.

It doesn't attempt to explain the discrepancy, unless it's saying that under extreme heat the 2 years can be reduced to 7 days but it doesn't make that clear in the article.
 
jroe52 said:
I had my ssd desktop off for a month without issues.
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Problem being that neither you nor I can be certain unless/until we open each and every one of our files.

You could have a corrupted picture on your drive that is only missing like someone's eye or ear and you wouldn't know until you went to access it a decade from now.
 
86 degrees F is not too hot (30 degrees C). I've seen some closets in hospitals get that hot or in a UPS room HVAC issues occur. I've also seen it in DATA centers during summer heat waves. However I have not seen these issues yet although it could still happen. I imagine alot of global shipments have pre-loaded O/S that are off for 10-30 days or longer while they ship, sit at port, go to the store or wharehouse or then ship again to a persons house. You could have 10-60 days of 90-100 degree temps in laptops.
 
In other news, if you boil your SSD the data retention time drops to the time you turn your PC off until you drop it in boiling water.
 
-Dragon- said:
In other news, if you boil your SSD the data retention time drops to the time you turn your PC off until you drop it in boiling water.
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In all seriousness, this can matter to people. If they're anything like me and are just scorching hotness, SSD data retention under high temperatures is pretty significant. :D
 
Nobody else puts their computers in the oven for storage? Maybe I'm the only one losing data when I travel to my grandmothers home every other week, for a week at a time. Cold boot are a thing of the past with a system kept at a comfortable 60*C.

But seriously - Sensationalist article with useless nonsense for 99% of consumers.
 
Good thing I don't store my SSDs on the bottom rack of my oven while I'm baking cookies.
 
Would apply to SD Cards as well?

I know somebody who leaves their holiday photos on the SD Cards and buys new cards for each holiday. Presumably this would mean he'll start losing data after two years (or less in higher temperatures)?
 
The sources cited by the article don't support the conclusions in the article. It comes very close to being intentionally obtuse as well. Sloppy journalism, so sloppy it may be intentional. Either the author is a complete idiot who doesn't know anything at all about technology and should be fired, or has written this to intentionally mislead the reader and should be fired.
 
This is total BS. Maybe they experienced data loss in their scenario, but that does not hold true in all cases, and they should not say it in that manner.

I have a 60GB OCZ Agility drive that was in a older desktop that didn't touch for well over 6 months back 2 years ago. I began using it again last year, and was able to pick up right where I left off, and Windows was fine, it didn't bluescreen on me hardly ever, and all of my files and documents were still fully intact and usuable, and still have no problems with the drive.
 
Got usb sticks, sd cards, etc that have sat for years and still have all the data. I don't see why they would fair better than the SSD in my computer. Sounds like bs as others have noted.
 
Mr Milquetoast said:
Would apply to SD Cards as well?

I know somebody who leaves their holiday photos on the SD Cards and buys new cards for each holiday. Presumably this would mean he'll start losing data after two years (or less in higher temperatures)?
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That's a good way to loose their photos.

And this also applies to USB thumb drives.

SSD's generally have more error protection than thumb drives or SD cards, so they are more reliable.
I'd never trust any of them for long term archival storage. Multiple copies/backups (including off site) are the only reliable way to you data.

When I'm on vacation, I even pull the SD card from my camera most nights and copy any new photos/videos over to the hard drive on laptop, just in case something happens to the card or camera the next day.
 
This study brought to you by seagate who recommend you buy a traditional mechanical hard drive as backup.
 
mope54 said:
Problem being that neither you nor I can be certain unless/until we open each and every one of our files.

You could have a corrupted picture on your drive that is only missing like someone's eye or ear and you wouldn't know until you went to access it a decade from now.
Click to expand...

I thought that's what CRC is for.
 
In the summer those self-storage spaces can get pretty hot. I can see any number of scenarios where a computer with an SSD might be put into storage during a move or similar. Would suck to pull it out of storage to find the SSD wiped.
 
I have an HTPC that has an older Sandisk Vnow (or something like that) SSD that routinely goes for days (sometimes a few weeks without being powered on. I do leave it in sleep mode though, but in that mode, only memory is being fed power right? The SSD should not be getting any?
 
Sounds like Seagate dives are susceptible to this and they are just spreading FUD.

Why can't you die already Seagate and take your caviar line of drives with you?
 
I have SSDs that are inactive for 6-7 months at a time, still works fine. [some including 840EVO]. Maybe I should buy a Lottery ticket.
 
nutzo said:
That's a good way to loose their photos.

And this also applies to USB thumb drives.

SSD's generally have more error protection than thumb drives or SD cards, so they are more reliable.
I'd never trust any of them for long term archival storage. Multiple copies/backups (including off site) are the only reliable way to you data.

When I'm on vacation, I even pull the SD card from my camera most nights and copy any new photos/videos over to the hard drive on laptop, just in case something happens to the card or camera the next day.
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I'm starting to have more than a few SD cards with corruption on them. The odd thing is they still pass read/write tests, but interestingly the photos (Data) which were on there became corrupt. And I know they were OK originally.

I didn't pay too much attention at first, but it keeps happening... Hmmm...

And yes I always backup too HD & Online backup now.
 
The open moral of the story is: Do not store your SSD in the oven.

The hidden moral of the story is: Misleading headlines are click bait.
 
I was about to say "duh", until I read the 7 days bit.

It is well known that the cells in Flash NAND lose charge over time, and one they reach below a certain threshold can no longer be "read".

The drive firmware actively manages this, and as cells get close to that threshold, rewrite them to keep them alive.

7 days seem AWFULLY short though. I thought on Samsungs TLC drives this number was closer to 7 MONTHS, and I would only expect it to be higher on MLC and SLC drives.
 
I want to live in the part of the planet that has 60 C temperatures consistently for 7 days.
Seriously, Seagate guys need to learn how to fix making mechanical drives before they are qualified to comment on SSDs lol.

What a bunch of jokers. I loved Seagate but their recent reliability has been utter crap. I wouldn't trust any SSD advice from them.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041596860 said:
I was about to say "duh", until I read the 7 days bit.

It is well known that the cells in Flash NAND lose charge over time, and one they reach below a certain threshold can no longer be "read".

The drive firmware actively manages this, and as cells get close to that threshold, rewrite them to keep them alive.

7 days seem AWFULLY short though. I thought on Samsungs TLC drives this number was closer to 7 MONTHS, and I would only expect it to be higher on MLC and SLC drives.
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So, article seems to conflict itself.

It also mentions a 2 year figure for consumer drives. Based on the 7 month estimate for TLC drives this seems reasonable.

So, how would this get down to 7 days? They say the time halves every 5 degree Celsius rise in temperature.

So, since it is an exponential relationship, and increase of between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius would do the trick. 30 degree increase = 11.4 days. 35 degree increase = 5.7 days.

So I guess the question is at what temperature is that base 2 year figure speced for?

Lets assume standard temperature pressure, so 20C (68F). You would have to store the SSD turned off in a 50-55 celsius (122 to 131F) storage location to bring it down to 7 days.

Many peoples cases get hot (but hopefully not this hot) but as far as unplugged storage? Maybe if you live in the desert and store it outside in a box?
 
I don't think this is click bait at all. Sometimes people leave their SSD's unplugged in their cases, where 100+ degrees isn't uncommon. I'm glad this info was released
 
Everyone is talking about the short end, but I didn't know that these were only good for 90 days and 2 years. I've got mechanical drives that I haven't used for years and when I plug them in, they're good.

I'll chalk this up to not doing enough research on my side, but to me 90 days isn't very long at all. I've definitely had computers that I quit using for longer than that (which may have had data that eventually wasn't backed up elsewhere...mostly because those old drives often were the backup before they were retired many years ago).

I'm sure I could live without what's on them (it has been 10 years in one case). As for flash, the only time I've lost data on a usb flash drive was if the drive itself died (or I lost the drive ;) )...though I don't know how long those drives were sitting in a drawer...more than a year I'm sure.
 
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