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https://www.xda-developers.com/your-unpowered-ssd-is-slowly-losing-your-data/
SSDs have all but replaced hard drives when it comes to primary storage. They're orders of magnitude faster, more convenient, and consume less power than mechanical hard drives. That said, if you're also using SSDs for cold storage, expecting the drives lying in your drawer to work perfectly after years, you might want to rethink your strategy. Your reliable SSD could suffer from corrupted or lost data if left unpowered for extended periods. This is why many users don't consider SSDs a reliable long-term storage medium, and prefer using hard drives, magnetic tape, or M-Disc instead.
Unlike hard drives that magnetize spinning discs to store data, SSDs modify the electrical charge in NAND flash cells to represent 0 and 1. NAND flash retains data in underlying transistors even when power is removed, similar to other forms of non-volatile memory. However, the duration for which your SSD can retain data without power is the key here. Even the cheapest SSDs, say those with QLC NAND, can safely store data for about a year of being completely unpowered. More expensive TLC NAND can retain data for up to 3 years, while MLC and SLC NAND are good for 5 years and 10 years of unpowered storage, respectively.
The problem is that most consumer SSDs use only TLC or QLC NAND, so users who leave their SSDs unpowered for over a year are risking the integrity of their data. The reliability of QLC NAND has improved over the years, so you should probably consider 2–3 years of unpowered usage as the guardrails. Without power, the voltage stored in the NAND cells can be lost, either resulting in missing data or completely useless drives.
This data retention deficiency of consumer SSDs makes them an unreliable medium for long-term data storage, especially for creative professionals and researchers. HDDs can suffer from bit rot, too, due to wear and tear, but they're still more resistant to power loss. If you haven't checked your archives in a while, I'd recommend doing so at the earliest.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Tuesday December 02, @04:22PM
I used to work security in a highrise where one of the standpipes storing water for the sprinklers had broken. That was before my time, but one of those systems can flood an area with an almost unimaginable amount of water in a matter of a few minutes if it breaks. But, a more common issue is for just one or a few of the sprinkler heads to start dumping water because they got triggered.
Water damage as you suggest is the biggest source of property damage in this context. Between plumbing disasters, literal floods and storm surges it's a lot.
My slightly off-site backups for the largest files I have go into a water resistant ammo can. It's not perfect, but if the sprinklers in the storage area do go off, it's good enough for that. If I were storing them there longer term, I'd probably throw a few desiccant packets in with the drive and use my vacuum sealer without the vacuum to seal it off. Which is fine, as that might be an issue in case of a fire, but if it's a fire hot enough to melt the vacuum seal plastic in a problematic way, it's likely hot enough to destroy the disk.