I’m sure USB pen drives are even worse.
I actually just pulled some files off of one from 2004-ish. No issues. Found another one from 2008 about a year ago that had no issues as well. Not sure why… maybe because they were so much lower capacity? Like, one was 64MB and that was huge back then.
They were slc, so the charge ratio was much higher.
Mlc/tlc/qlc drives have to measure a current very precisely, up to 16 values of discrimination, any charge degredation doesn’t change a 1 to a 0, but a 3 to a 2 to a 1 and given enough time, a zero.
Also smaller gate dielectric so more leakage.
Those old drives may be using SLC flash. It can have a 20+ year data retention.
I pulled some data off some old Samsung 1TB SSDs that werent powered for 3-4 years without an issue either. I guess they were SLC based on what others are saying.
I guess it’s a your mileage may vary situation depending on the exact drive you purchase and probably other factors too.
deleted by creator
Reject flash, return to tape
The tape is a lie.
I’m making a note here
Does nvme have this issue, too?
Absolutely. Sata SSD, m.2/nvme, USB thumb drives, it’s all just different form factors for nand flash memory.
Figured as much, but I wasn’t sure if thre nvme flash was of higher quality with potential benefits like what SLC brings. Thank you.
Heh, well some of those are most definitely of higher quality, but you mostly see that difference in throughput and seek times. But the underlying storage mechanism is the same, so yeah, this aspect is probably universal.