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Paul Sonier
Asked: 2009-05-08 13:19:33 +0800 CST

SSDs for archival purposes?

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Given the physical characteristics of flash memory, are SSDs an appropriate long-term storage medium for backups, etc.? Is their decay rate such that it is amenable to using them for rolling backups (thereby avoiding the wear issues)?

backup ssd storage archive

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I wouldn't try it. The floating charges that are used to store the bits can degrade within a few years. The more the flash memory has been used, the more likely this will happen. (The over-voltage used to erase the cells can be hard on the components.)

    Electrical storage media (these days) generally do not have as long a lifetime as their magnetic counterparts. Charge can seep away but magnetic spin is much more stable by comparison.

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  2. Sorry to be negative but I can't think of a worse use for SSDs myself - just on price/performance alone, forget their retention capabilities. Again, sorry to be negative.

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  3. The technology is way too new to be used as a long-term storage medium of any kind. Every three months new, unexpected high-impact performance issues are being discovered. So clearly the technology isn't quite ready for prime time. If the data is valuable and needs to be saved, the solutions are:

    • Disk-based archival systems (yours or someone else's)
    • Tape
    • Multiple permutations of the above.
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