Unpowered SSD endurance investigation finds data loss and performance issues

Summary

You may not know it, but SSDs will lose data after a period of time if they are simply left unplugged, which can be a serious threat to your data if you store backups or precious files on unplugged SSDs. A year-two update on the how long can SSDs store data unpowered video series is another reminder about the importance of regularly refreshing your backups with a bit of juice. The tests consist of storing data on an SSD and then leaving it unplugged for years to see the impact on the stored data.As a reminder, an SSD's endurance rating is calculated based on how long it can store data if left unplugged after a certain amount of data has been written, hence the importance of this testing.TechTuber HTWingNut is back with a report on his modest experiment involving a quartet of SATA SSDs. The key finding was that the two-year-old, well-worn drive exhibited noticeable performance degradation and was affected by a handful of corrupt files. These are signs that this particular SSD was on its way to silicon heaven. HTWingNut's video is an update on an episode from a year earlier, and further updates are promised. How Long Can SSD Store Data Unpowered? Year 2 Update - YouTube Watch On The four tested 'Leven JS-600' branded SSDs are basically bog-standard no-name units. HTWingNut says they are all TLC SSDs of 128GB capacity and rated to withstand 60 TB of written data. Every drive has 100GB of files containing random data, with hash values for all the content provided for later verification.The two 'Fresh' samples have barely been used; perhaps only the 100GB data set was put on there and verified, and that's it. Meanwhile, the 'Worn' drives have been subjected to 280 terabytes of written data churn, much more than their rated 60 Terabytes Written (TBW) endurance rating..If you watch the previous year-one video, you will have seen there were no issues with either 'Worn' or 'Fresh' drives. However, time has now taken its toll. Let's take a look at the year-two samples in turn...