Unpowered for a few days, some SSDs can begin to lose data

[HEXUS]

It seems that higher temperatures can speed the rate of data loss.

Read more.

[abaxas]

Higher temps...... won't effect the UK

[ZaO]

Higher temps...... won't effect the UK

Yeh right haha..

Thing is though, if you make backups, you're backing it up with the missing data eventually and losing the backups that once had that data. Unless you have infinite backup capacity.

[gwp]

Where does Intel's NVMe 750 fall into? Consumer or enterprise?

And heatwaves can last weeks

[scaryjim]

If I'm reading those tables right, the cooler the drive when active, the quicker it loses data when stored? Although how you'd end up with a drive at 25C when active, but then stored at 50C, I'm not entirely sure....

[watercooled]

I understand the logistics of such a test would be challenging, but this is something it would be nice to see addressed in reviews. If not each individual product review, some sort of round-up like we've seen Tech Report do for write endurance.

The issues with the 840 Evo show charge drift over time even when the drive is powered. Hopefully the firmware is designed to act before that turns into data loss (another thing it would be reassuring to test) but what about if it was left unpowered?

There are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to SSDs e.g. the way they handle power loss, data retention, performance degradation, and certain performance peculiarities which aren't picked up by many reviews e.g. http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage...TRIM-Performan

[cheesemp]

Worrying. My main PC was idle for a good 9 months after my daughter was born and only recently became actively in use recently. It was in room that got a lot of sun and could get quite hot. Scary to think it could have lost data if I'd have left it much longer...

[gwp]

Is this kind of data loss covered by the Sale of Goods Act for unsatisfactory quality?

[crossy]

Hmm, this is interesting, with some further interesting comments being made on this thread. So maybe SSD's are still a bit immature, and this is akin to that spate of HDD's flaking off their magnetic coating?

Maybe I need to buy some more of those Seagate SSHD's? Faster than a normal HDD, but presumably without the same forgetfulness that the article was talking about for SSD's.

[YenRug]

OK, the question that's not answered is what level of data loss are we looking at, here? I'm assuming it's not total loss they're talking about, but is it just the odd block here and there or potentially mass file corruption?

Interesting point about SSHD's, though I have to ask how do they operate: do they move the files onto the SSD cache, or just create a local copy which it uses in preference?

[miniyazz]

How does this compare with flash drives? Being as how (AFAIK) they use basically the same technology to store the data.

[peterb]

Is this kind of data loss covered by the Sale of Goods Act for unsatisfactory quality?

I doubt it, it is a characteristic of the device, and data loss is usually excluded from warranty claims. You would also need to read the specs carefully to see exactly what the data retention period is, and under what conditions.

Catastrophic or total data loss because of device falure would probably be covered though.

[shaithis]

Interesting point about SSHD's, though I have to ask how do they operate: do they move the files onto the SSD cache, or just create a local copy which it uses in preference?

They just cache an amount of data based on an algorithm. I'd like to think the firmware in the drives have some way of knowing if the cache is corrupt, if not I can imagine that this kind of data loss to the cache could cause some (major) headaches.

[DanceswithUnix]

Catastrophic or total data loss because of device falure would probably be covered though.

From my experience with returning Seagate hard drives, if the diagnostic utility can format over the problem then the drive is considered as good as new and no RMA will be issued. On a hard drive that is pretty easy to get around, just surface scan a few times and it will run out of spare sectors and issue an RMA code. I expect wiping an SSD that had lost data really would get it back to as good (or bad!) as new though.

[crossy]

Interesting point about SSHD's, though I have to ask how do they operate: do they move the files onto the SSD cache, or just create a local copy which it uses in preference?

I used to think that SSHD's use their flash merely as a read cache, there's more details available on Solid State Hybrid Technology on the Seagate site.

But reading something else on the Seagate site makes me thinks that there's more to it than that and the SSHD's are actually actively migrating the live copy of most-used data from HDD to SSD. In which case, presumably they've got the same issue as full blown SSD's albeit to a much lesser extent.

[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.