Did you know SSDs will lose data after a period of time if they are simply left unplugged? They do. This means you might want to seriously re-consider using SSD drives for long term storage.

How long before they start losing data? It depends on a number of factors, but it is between 1-2 years.

HTWingNut has been doing SSD endurancing testing. SSD’s endurance rating is calculated based on how long it can store data if left unplugged after a certain amount of data had been written to the drive (‘well-worn’ or ‘fresh’).

Summary: year-one fresh and well-worn drives had no issues. However, the year-two heavily worn SSD had file corruption and performance was poor. The so-called fresh drive was still good after 2 years, but ECC figures still raised concern.

Links:

• https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/storage/unpowered-ssd-endurance-investigation-finds-severe-data-loss-and-performance-issues-reminds-us-of-the-importance-of-refreshing-backups#xenforo-comments-3877903