Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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What is the Shelf Life of SSD’s? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Let’s say civilization collapsed and I still want to run all of my archived games and programs that are on HDD and tapes at good speeds for the foreseeable future. If I get myself a supply of SSD’s and store them in ideal conditions with no data, no power, and stored them in a lead lined container (for pesky cosmic and terrestrial radiation) how long before the components inside the SSD’s would degrade and become unusable. If anyone has any literature that discusses in detail the mechanisms and physics of different SSD’s that would be appreciated also!

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Is there any reason they won’t work after that amount of time?

Your first problem isn't how long these drives will work but how to check if they still work 50 years from now. Do you think computers in 2073 will still have the connectors being used today (e.g. M.2, SATA, SAS, U.2, U.3, EDSFF, etc)?

Take PATA HDDs for example. That storage interface began disappearing from motherboards in 2007. HDDs using that interface stopped production about 10 years ago. As years go by, even adaptors for that interface will become rarer. If you asked this question 20 years ago but instead of SSDs you stored new PATA HDDs, do you think you'll be able to check if they're still working 30 years from now?

To workaround the connector problem, you'll also have to store equipment that will work with the interface for those SSDs. Maybe a motherboard, an adaptor, even a power supply. How long would those extra hardware you have to store will last?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I don’t think they’ll have new computers during the apocalypse. I was more planning on keeping that variable constant in this discussion and assuming that I have a functional 2010’s pc during all of this. You are right though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Then you want to save more than just the drives. I mean look how easy CD/DVD drives have left PCs and Laptops for media.