Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
I still use write once DVDs. They have certain advantages in archiving, the only truely mission critical data is quite small, and you can't beat an airgap for security.
For stuff that isn't confidential at all, such as my photos etc, take to the cloud.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
herulach
Is anyone seriously using ssds as off line data storage though? To be honest if you are then you deserve what's coming to you!
Data backup is so straightforward nowadays there's no excuse for anyone not having a proper backup strategy.
Exactly. If data is so precious to people then they should spend a small amount of money to buy devices and media they can back up multiple copies to. 64Gb pen drive or microsSD card is less than £20 (128Gb is £35-40). 2Tb storage is £60 for a HDD.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
I dont know anyone (nor any server companies) that use SSDs as offline long term storage, they always use actual spindle drives as SSDs are at the very least too expensive to have simply for offline storage!
Madness whoever uses an SSD as offline storage, so much money to burn.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
If your going away for a two week holiday stick your PC in the fridge ... simples. ;-)
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
My backup is a few 4TB WD Red drives that only get connected when they need to do the backup.... which reminds me...
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
iranu
Exactly. If data is so precious to people then they should spend a small amount of money to buy devices and media they can back up multiple copies to. 64Gb pen drive or microsSD card is less than £20 (128Gb is £35-40). 2Tb storage is £60 for a HDD.
At the risk of getting shouted down, the problem is not the cost of storage - heck a 6TB NAS drive is less than £200 these days. The problem IS in getting the time to do that backup.
My PC has a 120GB, a 500GB and a 1TB drive - so (coincidentally) less than the 2TB you quote. A full backup (using Acronis with high compression) is about 4 1/2 hours over a SATA3 connection. Others have suggested running the backup at night - problem with that is the PC's in a bedroom, so the noise (and bright LED's) is going to keep you awake. Other option suggested is full+differentials. Problem with that is that if the full backup gets corrupted then your differentials are utterly useless - you NEED more than one full backup.
By the way - to cover a point others have talked about - who the heck is using a (small and expensive) SSD for long term storage? Horses for courses for lord's sake - use a cheap and capacious HDD for that!
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
full+differentials.
Full plus differential plus protection from various corruptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchive
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
crossy
At the risk of getting shouted down, the problem is not the cost of storage - heck a 6TB NAS drive is less than £200 these days. The problem IS in getting the time to do that backup.
My PC has a 120GB, a 500GB and a 1TB drive - so (coincidentally) less than the 2TB you quote. A full backup (using Acronis with high compression) is about 4 1/2 hours over a SATA3 connection. Others have suggested running the backup at night - problem with that is the PC's in a bedroom, so the noise (and bright LED's) is going to keep you awake. Other option suggested is full+differentials. Problem with that is that if the full backup gets corrupted then your differentials are utterly useless - you NEED more than one full backup.
By the way - to cover a point others have talked about - who the heck is using a (small and expensive) SSD for long term storage? Horses for courses for lord's sake - use a cheap and capacious HDD for that!
So automate it. File history is built into windows 7 & 8 (I like 8s better, but I'm probably weird) Thats easily capable of giving you incremental backups for as long as the disk space is capable, either to an external drive, an internal one or any network location.
The trick is deciding what you want to back up. its admittedly easier on debian (and presumably other nixes, but I'm not as familiar with their packaging) but with something like nLite you can be bare metal > working system in only marginally more time than restoring an image.
I'm fortunate in having oodles of space on my Nas to play around with stuff like this, but you could easily get a reasonable automated solution that would do your files + a system image for £100 (something like this http://www.ebuyer.com/496164-seagate...er-stcg3000200)
Then you just need to add a free dropbox/google drive/one drive/whatever account for your offsite. Its not Saracen compatible ;) but it will keep the important stuff safe.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
herulach
Is anyone seriously using ssds as off line data storage though? To be honest if you are then you deserve what's coming to you!
Oh? So if someone used a 1TB Samsung 850 Pro or equally fast ssd as a offline backup storage, they get what they deserve? Even though there was no mention of this data loss problem in any advert and retailer's website they saw?
These ssds were supposed to be the future of data storage. They aren't doing a good job of it.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Can anyone find data on spinning disks (HDD) retention rates ? The need for patrol reads and background functions in the firmware of HDD's suggests the data isn't as permanent as you think.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Practically this seems unlikely to affect many people in the UK in the short term but I could imagine that it might be a problem in a few years time. By then any elderly laptop will probably be booting from an SSD, so if you have one sitting on a shelf as a rarely used spare it might start hitting this issue (especially if it turns out that this problem gets progressively worse as the SSD nears end of life).
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gwp
Is this kind of data loss covered by the Sale of Goods Act for unsatisfactory quality?
Probably but how would you prove that data was lost due to idleness and wasn't corrupted by software? Maybe there will be diagnostic tools that can tell but for now, I'd just avoid small nodes and TLC. Remember, smaller isn't better with flash (becoming true for processors as well).
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tygrus
Can anyone find data on spinning disks (HDD) retention rates ? The need for patrol reads and background functions in the firmware of HDD's suggests the data isn't as permanent as you think.
Quote:
I conduct research on prototype hard drive media right now. The industry standard for bit lifetime is 10 years. That means that on average, a bit will take 10 years to randomly flip from a 0 to a 1. This is driven by random thermal fluctuations and can be modeled as an Arrhenius type equation.
Source and some good information/conversation on the topic, although some of it is kind of high level.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Some more details on this story here: http://anandtech.com/show/9248/the-t...data-retention
Apparently the retention figures are for a drive that has passed its endurance rating, so just looking at the chart in isolation could be very misleading.
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
Quote:
Originally Posted by
tygrus
Can anyone find data on spinning disks (HDD) retention rates ? The need for patrol reads and background functions in the firmware of HDD's suggests the data isn't as permanent as you think.
The 20MB Tandon (WD) MFM HDD in my Schneider (Amstrad rebrand) PC1640SD (8086 8MHz, 640KB RAM, EGA monitor) still holds data dated early 90s :p
Re: Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data
An old 16MB SmartMedia card was holding data fine the last time I checked, along with a load of <<512MB USB drives, all using NAND the same as SSDs (probably larger lithography but also less sophisticated controllers/lower binned NAND); I think it's really quite important to emphasise the fact these retention results are from drives used past their endurance ratings.
Nonetheless, it would still be nice to see retention put to the test for drives using various types of NAND at various stages of wear. In addition, we're assuming the controller does some scrubbing on at-rest data when powered on, so as I think I said earlier in the thread, it would be good to check data isn't also lost with power supplied to the drive.