SSDs lose data if left without power for just 7 days

The standards body for the microelectronics industry has found that Solid State Drives (SSD)
can start to lose their data and become corrupted if they are left without power for as little
as a week. 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.

Consumer class SSDs can store data for up to two years before the standard drops, but when it
comes to SSDs used by enterprises, the drives are only expected to retain data for a period
of three months – a fact confirmed by Samsung, Seagate and Intel's own ratings on their products.

Security firm KoreLogic is concerned that far too many people are now using SSDs in both consumer
and enterprise applications, which is clearly not a great idea if the data is important and might
be needed for a longer period that three months. The firm advises that users make sure to regularly
back up their data and create drive images, or they will risk losing their data, which can have
disastrous consequences, for example if the data was part of evidence gather by a law firm for a
deposition.

Source
guru3d.com

 

this is crazy, i was planning to buy a 512 SSD for my OS

 

What? Is this really true?

 

I guess all those ones sitting on a shelf in a shop or the ones being shipped from China etc all dead on arrival

Reminds me of the Frogger episode from Seinfeld

Jerry and George go to their old high-school hangout, Mario's Pizza Parlor, for one last slice of pizza before it closes down.
At Mario's, George discovers he still has the high score on the old Frogger video game, with a score of 860,630 points George decides to buy the Frogger machine to preserve his fame, but Jerry asks how he will move it and keep it plugged in to preserve the high score.

George works to find a solution to his Frogger problem, and Kramer volunteers the help of a man he knows named "Slippery Pete" George tries to coordinate the movement of the Frogger machine.

George finds "Slippery Pete" playing his Frogger game on battery power until only about 3 minutes of power remain. The only available power source is across the busy street,
Convinced he does not need any help, George starts moving the machine across the busy street, moving through traffic like the frog from the video game. However, as George reaches the opposite sidewalk he is unable to lift the game onto the curb; an oncoming Freightliner smashes the game cabinet, causing Jerry to quip, "Game over".

 

well , i have left my ssd without power more than 15 days , i didnt notice any loss of data....

 

This should definitely not stop you for purchasing a SSD drive. Any production drive should have a backup anyway.

 

This is bit of a scaremongering title. I have a laptop with an SSD which often sits for months without using it, the data is still fine when I turn it on. Makes it sound like they all die after a week being off :P

 

Maybe it's a way to avoid some lawsuit if something go wrong *yes*

 

What a bunch of nonsensical horsepoop.
First off, SSDs use NAND memory based chips which require no power to store its data. Thumb drive use them too.
Second off, since last year I've installed over 50 SSDs into client's machines - absolutely no loss of data and those laptops were sitting without power for over 6 months.
My main Sample SSD often lies days, even weeks without power.

As long as we aren't presented with empirical evidence - what chips were affected, which drives and which controllers, I'd say have a backup, but do not worry.

 

I had to RMA my PSU. It took over 3 weeks before I got my new PSU back. So for 21 days my 3 SSD drives had no power going to them. I had zero data loss on any of them.

 

Read the article people, not the thread title.
It says most consumer drives will have no data drops for (over) two years.

 

I have USB flash memory sticks that have been unpowered for years and when I plug them in there is zero data loss so no need to worry.

 

BUT now we talking 7 days not years

 

I just bought a WD Black2 hybrid drive for my Macbook that has both a 120 GB SSD (which I'll be using for my OS and apps) and a 1TB magnetic drive (for data, documents, samples, etc.) in one enclosure, seems like the best way to go ... until I max out the writes on the SSD, that is.

 

Still longer than any Lacie drive ...

 

I'm planning to buy a 512 gb SSD for the future, i will use it for the OS and also for samples,kontakt and projects. is it a good choice or not?

 

thanks for that little bit of news. Was about a week away from getting a SDD to help load at library at least 4 times faster than currently my 7200 does. Data is too important to risk though, its constantly getting tweaked and backing up too often is not really practical with my current setup.

@mostwest Wouldn't have thought it was a problem if your using your your machine at least once a week, for most of us our os's are in daily use.

 

Entropy, decay ... due to the exponentiality of the storage capacity... Does it reflect on cognitive capacities as well?

How factual is data checking?

Is light intelligence less likely to glitches than complex systems?

Storage capacity for being truly effective has to become a phantom ,something virtual just accessible when it s just representing a taken sector?

Why to perform a mechanical checking point based on returning void ?
Can be void accessed at all?
When a checksum returns values associated to void , what does it declare?




Is amount synonymous of fatal error?


The empty spaces of emmental cheese are cheese? If it is the case,what nationality could take?

 

First off, NAND isn't really applicable here. NAND is a logic gate topology. What you want to call these chips is FLASH memory.

We've installed hundreds and seen more than a dozen of them fail in a number of ways. Including total data loss.

Check the 840 series Samsung drives. Plenty of articles on those but not a total disaster - access speeds drop.