Solid state drives can lose data (True?)

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According to this article, SSDs can apparently lose data in a relatively short period of time if/when they are without power.

Here is a quote from the link below:

“Solid-state drives lose data if left without power for just a few days. New research suggests that newer solid-state hard drives, which are faster and offer better performance, are vulnerable to an inherent flaw — they lose data when they’re left dormant in storage for periods of time where the temperature isn’t properly regulated.”

http://techtalk.pcpitstop.com/2015/05/12/hard-drives-losing-data-without-power/?ssdflaw=

Any comments?

:huh:

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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Yes, they can lose data but to what extent isn’t really known or fully understood.

Seagate are pushing this report, do they produce SSDs or hard drives?

“Solid-state drives lose data if left without power for just a few days.” <– reads like a definitive statement…

…but wait, there's more: "New research suggests that newer solid-state hard drives, which are faster and offer better performance, are vulnerable to an inherent flaw — they lose data when they’re left dormant in storage for periods of time where the temperature isn’t properly regulated". Getting increasingly vague…

" …the period of time data is retained on some solid-state drives is halved for every 9°F (or 5°C) rise in temperature where its stored." "But enterprise solid-state drives pose the biggest risk to data loss, because the retention period drops considerably.

A moderate increase of just 9°F (5°C) in temperature in a space where an enterprise solid-state drive is stored can drop a retention rate from 20 weeks to 10 weeks."

Hmm, but they don't actually state what those conditions for enterprise SSDs might be.

Remind me, who makes those expensive RE and Constellation enterprise HDDs? And the same company also makes SSDs – for enterprise – yes, really:

Mission Critical Storage

Enterprise performance drives (2.5-inch HDD and SSD) are optimised for transactional data access at the fastest response times.

http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/products/enterprise-servers-storage/mission-critical-storage/

Confused yet? Stick to a mixture and don't forget to back your data up, Pete

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It does seem vague and the real question is whether it has impact in the real world. Sounds pretty much like scaremongering…

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Are you suggesting someone is encouraging FUD? Surely not!

cheers, Paul

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@satrow: Confusing, YES!! Hence my request for comments. And YES, I certainly make and keep regular data and full system backups/images …just in case!

My Rig: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core CPU; ASUS Cross Hair VIII Formula Mobo; Win 11 Pro (64 bit)-(UEFI-booted); 32GB RAM; 2TB Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 2TB PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 NVMe SSD. 1TB SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 NVME SSD; MSI GeForce RTX 3090 VENTUS 3X 24G OC; Microsoft 365 Home; Condusiv SSDKeeper Professional; Acronis Cyberprotect, VMWare Workstation Pro V17.5. HP 1TB USB SSD External Backup Drive). Dell G-Sync G3223Q 144Hz Monitor.

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Confusing to me. I would want to read a peer reviewed journal article on the research. The slides leave A LOT to be desired in gleaning info out of them…though I thought they indicated SSDs superior for a while to HDDs in holding onto data then rapidly degrading to match the HDD in data loss.

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Interesting, but I’d like to see more than just one research article.

The “few days without power” is just so much crap, it’s unbelievable that someone would actually come up with that.

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I have a netbook with an ssd in it that I recently powered on after it had been sitting for 5 months without power. It powered right up and worked fine with no issues. I can’t say that I verified that every single bit on it was still intact, but I’m reasonably confident that it didn’t lose any data. My experience doesn’t disprove or prove the validity of the article but does show that YMMV.

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I have an HP Pavilion g6 Notebook with a Crucial 120GB SSD running Linux Mint 17.1. It’s been off for more than a month and unplugged from AC power, battery completely discharged. Just fired it up and all seems to be good so maybe the concern would be more for the long term scenario.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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That article smells of BS–but that’s just imo.

Use disks as recommended and you’ll be fine:
SSD for OS and programs and page file;
HDD for data;
Image backups of the SSD [eg before Windows Update], incremental data backups of the HDDs [with full backup every week/month].

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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See: Debunked: Your SSD won’t lose data if left unplugged after all
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

Jerry

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However, the Mai Zheng study (post #8) has yet to be debunked.

Unless you listened to and understood where the comments were coming from at the end…

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Specfically?

#10, 1st para should furnish some clues

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So, we should believe a paragraph in a personal post instead of a peer-reviewed scientific study?

LOL. I’m asking you if you actually listened to and understood the comments made in the video you linked, where audience members picked out areas of the presentation that were flawed/could have been improved upon (the closest I’ve seen to any peer review for this but then I’ve not searched for any) – nothing to do with my comments or opinion.

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Audience members asking questions is not actually a “peer review”.

If you find any published evidence that contradicts the study, I’d like to see it.

They might well be considered peers, especially if you heard their introductions, companies represented etc.

Please, do listen to them.

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A scientific peer review is a formal process.

http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16Neat EDIT, as usual.

I’ll look forward to the documentation you find that debunks the Zheng study.

Um, you post a bald URL without any useful quote from it or any comment on the bearing it has with the topic in the OP and expect us to take it at face value, yet you don’t appear to want to do anything further, like discussing it, except ask one line questions.

Have you actually watched that presentation, checked out who the audience were and understood what/why they asked those questions and made those comments. If you have, then please, be our guest, tell us what you think of it.

I’m not going to do any legwork for a troll.

If you can find the paper, you might find the peer reviews, otherwise you’ll have to make do with what you have.

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You don’t know if a peer review exists or whether a paper was even submitted for such.

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Today (5-21-2105) one of the authors of the article very loudly proclaimed that it was being misinterpreted and that SSDs will not lose data if without power even for years. The report rapidly spreading across the Internet is based on a misreading of a study conducted five years ago. Let’s have a round of applause for all the irresponsible bozos who never bothered to fact check their stories as they spread the false information.

Here’s the link to the story explaining the misunderstanding. The story is written by the editor of PC World.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

If you’re in a panic because the Internet told you that your shiny new SSD may lose data in “just a few days” when stored in a hot room, take a chill pill—it’s apparently all a huge misunderstanding, according to the man who wrote the original presentation all the fear is based on.

In a conversation with Kent Smith of Seagate and Alvin Cox, the Seagate engineer who wrote the _0.pdf”]presentationthat set the Internet abuzz, PCWorld was told we’re all just reading it wrong.

“People have misunderstood the data that they’re looking at,” Smith said.

Cox agreed saying there’s no reason to fret.
“I wouldn’t worry about (losing data),” Cox told PCWorld. “This all pertains to end of life. As a consumer, an SSD product or even a flash product is never going to get to the point where it’s temperature-dependent on retaining the data.”

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Posts on this forum aren’t subject to formal peer review with respect to their substantive content. If the lack of formal peer review were sufficient reason to discount even an informed opinion, then I’m not sure what value there would be in this forum.

Dave

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Please read the article linked in post #11. This is much ado about nothing:

“In a conversation with Kent Smith of Seagate and Alvin Cox, the Seagate engineer who wrote the presentation that set the Internet abuzz, PCWorld was told we’re all just reading it wrong.

“People have misunderstood the data that they’re looking at,” Smith said.

Cox agreed saying there’s no reason to fret.

“I wouldn’t worry about (losing data),” Cox told PCWorld. “This all pertains to end of life. As a consumer, an SSD product or even a flash product is never going to get to the point where it’s temperature-dependent on retaining the data.”

NOTE: the person who wrote the presentation says it is being misinterpreted.

This thread has gone off the rails. I’m closing this thread.

Joe

--Joe

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The “discussion” was about whether the Ohio State University/HP study was “debunked” by the comments made at the end of the presentation.

The topic was about whether “SSDs can apparently lose data in a relatively short period of time if/when they are without power”, your “discussion”, which you’ve yet to take any meaningful part in, was tangential.

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