Solid-state drives lose data if left without power for just a few days

ZDNet ^ | May 9, 2015 | Zack Whittaker

[Utilizer]

Storage. It's not a sexy topic. But everyone uses it in some way or another. You have iPhones, you have computers. Everyone knows how important a person's data is. But it doesn't just "disappear."

Or does it?

New research suggests that newer solid-state hard drives, which are faster and offer better performance, are vulnerable to an inherent flaw -- they lose data when they're left dormant in storage for periods of time where the temperature isn't properly regulated.

The worrying factor is that the period of time can be weeks, months, but even in some circumstances -- just a few days.

Solid-state drives are better than regular mechanical hard drives, which are slow and sluggish. But unless they're battered around, smashed, or poured in acid, they pretty much last forever.

[minnesota_bound]

I was going to try a solid state drive but will now wait to they fix this BIG flaw.

[dayglored]

Makes me wonder about my laptop. I replaced the rotating HD with an SSD about a year ago. I tend to power up the laptop only about once a month for Windows Updates and a few days a month on average — it’s my traveling machine and these days I’m not traveling much. Guess it would be wise to run it a bit more than I do.

[dayglored]

Potential data loss problem with SSDs ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to SunkenCiv for the ping!!

[wastedyears]

That’s why I have just 3 games on a 64GB SSD, and Windows isn’t installed on it.

[zeugma]

Backups should be automatic. You should never have to think of it.

Apple got it right with ‘Time Machine”.

I run Linux, so I use “backintime” which is essentially the same thing, I recently pulled three years worth of sermons for my pastor because he wanted a dvd with all of them on it from my backup drive.

[itsahoot]

Anything you have “in the cloud” is no longer private information.

Neither is whatever you have on your computer cloud or no cloud.

[Alas Babylon!]

The only storage device for modern tablets and many new types of sleek notebooks—like the Microsoft Surface 3 or latest high-end iPad—is SSD.

The many manufacturers are law suit adverse. I doubt this issue is something we need to worry too much about.

Murphy’s law still applies, of course, but I wouldn’t worry too much. I use my tablets to teach computer classes and professional talks and demonstrations. But I am a consultant too and then might chose not to use them for a particular project. I have left my Surface or iPad turned off for many weeks, sometimes a month or so and never had an issue.

[rarestia]

This is why I sleep my machines. Sleep is a low-power alternative to shutting down. Hibernate will write RAM to disk and put the machine in low-power, but with SSD, hibernate is not as safe as sleep.

I recently booted an offline enterprise certificate authority with SSDs in my lab environment after being offline for 18 months, and it booted with no issues. This is good information to keep in mind, but I don’t believe this is a major issue.

[max americana]

” I’ve left thumbdrives in pants pockets and subjected them to the washing machine (no the dryer!) without any data loss.”

Coincidence: my GF left my Sandisk Cruzr 8 gb drive inside my jeans pocket and let the washer run completely. She does the laundry and I was so mad I chewed her out basically. Lo and behold, it actually still worked, no loss at all. Amazing. The only “loss” i had to compensate was an apology/ expensive dinner for the chew out.

[Swordmaker]

Anything you have “in the cloud” is no longer private information. Bank on it.

It is if you've stored it with Apple's iCloud. You encrypt it to 256 bit AES standard with your own key which is entangled with your device's 128 bit UUID. Apple does not have your key and cannot decipher your data and on receipt of it, anonymizes, splits it into four parts, combines it with other users according to an algorithm and then encrypts it again to an additional 256 bit AES for which they do have the key. It is safe from any prying eyes of government or anyone else. Without your key, entered from your device, no one can access your data.

To break your key assuming a 16 character passcode, it would take a super computer capable of checking 100,000 possible combinations of 140 character keys, seeing if they result in a reasonable result, and then moving on to the next possible key, only . . .

49,281,214,751,401,700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 YEARS That's 49 undecillion years to try all of the possible pass keys.

Any potential cracker might get lucky and hit the right one in a week. . . but the odds are against them. In actual fact, is that by the time they would hit it, the Universe would have died a heat death, since the half life of a proton is far shorter than that. i think the need to see what is in your data would be moot long before they could break in.