Quote:
Originally Posted by Quoth
USB sticks / SD cards can fade in a drawer, a regular HDD won't.
|
As I understand it, SSD's will fade too. I haven't researched this deeply, and I don't know if simply keeping them powered up or powering them up for XXX time every YYY interval will do it. Do you actually have to re-write every bit that you want to persist to "refresh" it?
Many systems these days come only with an SSD - no HDD installed. It's easy enough to follow a "power up" protocol if this indeed will keep all the bits refreshed. But if you actually have to read, then re-write each bit to refresh it ... that's a whole different ballgame. That eBook you saved to your SSD years ago but never got around to reading it - will it still be 100% intact in five years? Hmmm, that's kind of scary thinking about that if simply keeping your computer powered up is not sufficient to refresh things.
For example, my main Calibre database is on my desktop computer. That is total SSD. I've got tons of books that were written to the SSD years ago and haven't been touched since. And this could be a big problem for many people. I do backup my desktop every 24 hours to a remote computer ("remote" in the sense that's it's a separate computer, but it's also located in my house, so not remote from my immediate property). And that backup is written to an HDD, not an SSD. In addition, every 24 hours I copy my Calibre library over to another server for web presentation, and that copy is also to an HDD. So even if the main Calibre database on my desktop dies due to its SSD not being totally refreshed simply by being powered on, I have a reliable restore path from those other HDD copies.
However, I do have a different SSD-only computer that has been powered down for maybe 1-1/2 years now. When it is powered up, backups to a different servers HDD occur automatically. But the sorry fact is that I've left it powered down for 1-1/2 years. It's SSD could be dead or dying AFAIK. Luckily nothing has changed on it during those 1-1/2 years (duh - because it's powered down!) so the last backup it ran before it's extended sleep is still an up to date backup (it's not one backup either - it does both image backup and a file-based backup, since it's a Windows computer).
Still, it would be good to know FOR SURE if simply keeping an SSD powered up is sufficient to keep all bits refreshed. I'm already starting to rethink my idea stated a few posts back of keeping my "write once" stuff copied to thumbdrives stored in a Safe Deposit Box. Maybe that idea should be updated to store that data on an HDD rather than flash memory. True, this "write once" data of mine is movies, books, music, etc. so not the end of the world if it is lost. But if you're going to do something, might as well do it right in the first place. I'm glad @Quoth brought this flash memory degradation point up, even if just in passing. I had apparently forgotten/ignored it when I was speaking above. My apologies for giving bad or questionable advice/suggestions about thumbdrive/SD card use.