Debunked: Your SSD won't lose data if left unplugged after all

PC World ^ | May 21, 2015 | Gordon Mah Ung

[dayglored]

Big scare debunked. For example:

"Solid-state drives lose data if left without power for just a few days"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3288328/posts

Your SSD solid-state hard drives are just fine, just like we suspected all along.

[dayglored]

Big SSD data loss scare was a "big misunderstanding" and not true for you and me ... PING!

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

[dayglored]

Definitely ping-worthy.

[Steely Tom]

I believe a FReeper pointed precisely this point out back on one of the threads on this topic a week or so ago. I can’t remember who, unfortunately.

[dayglored]

Well there was a great deal of good discussion of whether the original concern was warranted (most agreed it sounded unreasonable, but that one ought to do backups anyway), so I wouldn't be surprised if somebody had pulled out the old report that caused the concern and said, "Now wait one cotton-pickin' minute here..."

Thing is, I would think I would have either seen that, or been alerted to it by Swordmaker or ShadowAce since I'm on their ping lists.

So either I've been oblivious (which I admit happens occasionally), or this is the first thread specifically on the debunking.

But if someone can find an earlier thread on the same topic, please post a link to it.

[Swordmaker]

All that Internet panic spread about SSDs losing data after being left powered down after just a few days in a hot environment? Just forget it! The guy who published the study says everyone was reading his study wrong — PING!

OOPS, we were wrong about hot unpowered SSDs losing data
So sorry about that Ping!

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[ThomasThomas]

I have repaired many computers with SSDs and I have yet to have any problem with one, others have. I worked with a guy who had someone drive over his laptop and the SSD survived. But if a SSD does fail, I don’t of any thing you can do or a place that can recover like you have for Hard drives. My best machines use a hybrid SSD for the OS and store data on two mirrored 3TB drives.

[Swordmaker]

Definitely ping-worthy.

Yes it soytenly is!

[bajabaja]

Journolist goes pc.

[miliantnutcase]

Best way to store critical data is on mechanical drives in RAID configuration for mirroring. I love SSD drives I only install my OS and games to them.

[PA Engineer]

That makes me happy. I was looking at a 1.0TB SSD to upgrade my computer and had put it on hold.

[dayglored]

> Best way to store critical data is on mechanical drives in RAID configuration for mirroring. I love SSD drives I only install my OS and games to them.

I can't think of any reason not to do a RAID-1 mirror with SSDs either. Seems like it ought to work as well as with rotators.

[dayglored]

> Journolist goes pc.

??? Please 'splain?

[smokingfrog]

As I suspected.

[TexasGator]

I guess I can move my AC setting back up to 74 from 60 now ...

[bajabaja]

Journolist == a group of leftist journalists who were found to be on an internet “list” where they pushed leftist persperctives.

PC: == play on “politically correct” and “personal computer”

So here the author of the “SSD’s lose memory if left unpowered” was pushing an agenda, just as the leftie journolistas do.

Or: don’t believe what you read, not only in the general press, but in the “personal computing” press.

Can’t be trusted.

[ThunderSleeps]

That's similar to my setup I put in place a few months back. I have a 128GB SSD for the OS (/ on my Linux system) and swap, and a 1TB conventional HDD for data. (/home on my Linux system)

I don't have RAID for /home, but I do make regular backups to an external USB HDD. That drive is only on the system to make the backups, it is not on normally. That reduces wear and tear on the external drive, and reduces the chances of a single mishap taking out the primary and backup.

[aft_lizard]

I will let you guys know if I have data corruption on my 850 evo 250. I was using one as my main OS but migrated the data to an hardrive because of the update schedule for Windows 10 tech preview. Figured I would save the writes for when I am not rewriting it every two weeks.

[palmer]

Best way to store critical data is on mechanical drives in RAID configuration for mirroring

Works for a server sitting on the floor, that can't be tipped over. For my laptop which I drop from time to time, I use SSD, and back it up as often as it changes (i.e. days). If I had critical data that changed more rapidly I would probably do an online backup.

[rarestia]

But if a SSD does fail, I don’t (sic) of any thing you can do or a place that can recover like you have for Hard drives.

SSDs warn you WELL IN ADVANCE of a failure. Any modern OS (i.e. Win7, 8, OSX, Ubuntu) have tools in the system to warn you of failures on SSDs. These failures usually occur during operations against sectors and manifest as read failures. Unless you're running your SSD at 95% or more capacity utilization, the firmware in a majority of SSD controllers have SMART warnings to notify of an impending failure.

You are doing yourself a disservice if you disregard hardware/SMART warnings from your system, esp. for HDD/SSDs!