Storage Media Life Expectancy: SSDs, HDDs & More!

Welcome to another explainer video from Computers.com. This time I am going to talk about the

life

expectancy

of different

storage

media

, including hard drives, SSDs, and optical drives. This is a topic I get asked about frequently, so let's get started. Here we have a selection of solid state magnetic and optical

storage

media

in optimal condition. Data stored on magnetic media can last for several decades and tape cartridges have a

life

span of up to 30 years; However, the average life

expectancy

of a hard drive is generally reported to be between 3 and 7 even years in typical use, the life expectancy of solid state storage depends on the type of flash memory cells on which it is based and how many times they have been rewritten, but as a general guide, modern brand name SSDs should last at least 5 to 10 years. years of typical use, this logged data may be lost after one or two years if the SSD is left unpowered.

Finally, when it comes to recordable optical storage, some high-quality media can retain data for several decades; However, it is also not uncommon for low-quality media to become unusable afterwards. In a couple of years, as you can deduce, it is incredibly difficult to predict the exact life expectancy of any particular type of digital media, not least because it depends on the type and intensity of use, environmental conditions, and the time spent storing it. long term. The video is there, so it is based on the best information I can find with many references included in the video description.

It is also important to note that any average life expectancy figure falls in the middle of a normal statistical distribution. I make note of this because when I posted a video on the life expectancy of SSDs some people commented that the average figures I gave were incorrect because they owned a drive that had lasted much longer or shorter and therefore we must remember that a The average figure is not made invalid by an occasional outlier, such as a drive with a factory defect that fails after a few days, weeks, or months. Hard drives read and write data on rotating magnetic platters using heads that float just above the disk. its surface, the heads move between tracks using actuator arms, and the fact that all of this works like this Reliably, it is surprising that usually the death of a hard drive is due to the failure of a mechanical part, such as a motor, or a scratch on the drive platter caused by a head being crushed against its surface;

However, the circuit board controller on a hard drive can also fail, for example after a power surge, so how long will a hard drive last? The two largest manufacturers, Seagate and Western Digital, offer 2-year warranties on entry-level models rising to 5 years on high-end and enterprise hardware, and this clearly indicates that they expect most of their drives to last at least this time, other estimates vary and suggest that hard drives last 3 to 5 years, while the Enterprise Storage Forum reports that companies should plan for hard drives to last 4 to 7 years, some data storage organizations have also Research results were published, for example, in March 2023, Secure Data Recovery revealed an analysis of 27 failed hard drives.

Here, the average failed drive had been on for 2,233 hours or just over 2 years and 10 months in May 2023, cloud storage provider Blaze reported a broader study. of 17.1 155 failed drives where the average failure The drive was on for 22360 hours or just over 2 years 6 months now, while this is all excellent data, it does not directly imply that most hard drives last less than 3 years to start While a hard drive's age and operating hours are likely to be very similar for drives operating in a data center, this will not be the case in many consumer environments where PCs and laptops they typically do not operate 24/7 and, very importantly, as Both studies only looked at failed units.

Longer-lived drives were less likely to have been included in the experimental sample, highlighting this point in 2021, when Blaz had reported that 90% of its hard drives had been working for at least 4 years and 65% were working for at least 6 years Given that b Blaze operates over 200,000 consumer grade hard drives and their data centers, this analysis suggests that if we buy a new hard drive, it has a 2/3 chance of working for at least 6 years, However, before we get too excited it's worth remembering that this data refers to hard drives running in a data center under ideal, controlled environmental conditions;

By contrast, drives in consumer PCs, and particularly in laptops and external enclosures, are likely subject to physical shock, vibration, power surges, and temperature changes that can greatly reduce their lifespan, so My previous statement that most hard drives will last 3-7 years is still a reasonable proposition, but there is no doubt that some hard drives will last much longer and I personally own two 20 year old Western Digital Raptors. that still work perfectly, finally it is worth noting that hard drives are subject to data fading or Ro bit over time, this means that if you write data to a new drive and then store it for 20 years, it is possible that the data may no longer be readable even if the disk remains in perfect working order, this is due to the degradation of the magnetic field and can only be protected against by periodically updating the data by rewriting it.

How often this should happen is a matter of debate, but rewriting the contents of a hard drive every 5 years probably is. Smartly and every 2 years for critical or backup files, next let's reflect on the life expectancy of other magnetic media. Even today, data cartridges containing a reel of tape remain popular for backup or archiving purposes, as noted above, when stored in optimal conditions, they can retain information. for up to 30 years and while this previous version 3 linear open tape cartridge only stores 400 GB of uncompressed data, the latest L9 cartridges in the same form factor offer 18 terabs of uncompressed storage for around $100 over over the years, many other removable magnetic media.

They have been used for data storage, including zip floppy disks and Jazz cartridges and even sycl micro drives. In theory, all of these can have a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years and possibly much longer, but for most users their lifespan has now been limited by the lack of availability of hardware capable of reading them from solid state drives. or SSDs store data in flash memory cells on flash memory chips memory cells are generally called logic gates with two technologies commonly employed called floating gate and loaded flash trap to write or program data. applied to move electrons towards the floating gate or charge trap, this changes the resistance between the memory cell source and drain, which can be measured by passing a current between them, while Nan flash cells can be written individually, they can only be erased in blocks to do this.

A voltage is applied to remove electrons from the floating gate or charged trap; However, repeated operations of the program sets weaken the materials the cells are made of, resulting in electrons escaping from a floating gate or being retained in the charged trap after a certain number. of program arrays or PE cycles, therefore it is impossible for the cells to operate reliably. The number of PE cycles that the flash memory cell can sustain depends in part on the amount of data it has to initially hold. All SSDs store only one bit of data per cell, which we now refer to as single-level cells or SLCs, however, to increase capacities at a reasonable cost, multi-level cells or mlc SSDs were developed, followed by triple level cells or TLC and quad level cells or qlc, these store

more

bits per memory cell by distinguishing additional states between fully programmed and fully erased;

However, as the cell wears down from a lost electron, it is

more

difficult to distinguish these additional states, meaning the cells can sustain fewer PE cycles. The average number of PE cycles is different for consumer and enterprise hardware as well. It varies between models and manufacturers, but as a guide, today SLC units can withstand around 100,000 PE cycles, mlc between approximately 3000 and 10,000 TLC between 500 and 3000 and qlc between 300 and 1000 and today the guarantees of the manufacturer tend to reflect the lower end of this range, for example. Samsung's 990 Evo and 990 Pro 1TBte SSDs have a written warranty of 600 terab, which is equivalent to 600 PE cycles for these TLC drives and it's no surprise that the 2terb models based on the same flash memory cells have written guarantees of 12200 100 terabytes, this also highlights how if you want an SSD that can withstand a lot of adequate activity, it is advisable to choose one with the highest capacity you can afford nowadays, almost all and users' SSDs are TLC or qlc and I know this worries a lot of people, but even a 600 terab written warranty for Samsung's 1 tbte TLC SSDs is equivalent to 100 GB written every day for 6000 days or 16.4 years and today most Manufacturers claim that their SSDs should last 10 years or more in normal use; however, I have never seen a warranty longer than 5 years.

Therefore, stating that the average life expectancy of an SSD is between 5 and 10 years in normal use is a reasonable, albeit potentially conservative, proposition. This point noted that SSDs can suffer from Daya fading, as over time electrons can escape from their floating gates or trap charges. It is more likely to occur at high or low temperatures and if the memory cells have endured a high proportion of their viable PE cycles to mitigate this problem, modern SSD controllers use a read and wipe technology that scans the drive during periods of idle and rewrites data to any block of flash memory that has fallen below a safe retention threshold.

In theory, this means that a regularly powered SSD should be able to retain data for the entire life of the drive; Unfortunately, when an SSD is not powered on, it cannot execute refresh operations and this will limit how long data is retained. In 2010, the Joint Electronic Device Engineering Council or JEDC established an SSD standard that requires customer SSDs to retain data. for 365 days when turned off and stored at 30°. Today, new SSDs from compatible manufacturers will likely retain data for two or more years when powered off and stored at a moderate temperature; However, if you intend to use SSDs as archival media, do not use drives that have endured most of their PE cycles, do not store them above 30°, and ideally leave the drive on for several hours at a moderate temperature. .

At least once a year, memory cards and USB sticks are based on the same solid state technology as SSDs and therefore must have the same life expectancy characteristics and, in fact, the Association of SD cards stated that the lifespan of an SD card is now 10 years or more. However, in normal use, to protect data, always safely eject USB flash drives and memory cards before removing them and, as with SSDs, there is no guarantee that a USB drive or card will Unpowered memory retains data for an extended period of time and I personally wouldn't. Trust no one to keep data safe for more than a year.

Optical writable media records data by using a laser to change the properties of a layer of dye. Many different types of dyes and other materials can be used to create recordable and rewritable CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray and all of these media produced with different data retention characteristics, it is not uncommon for data on some optical recordable media to fade. after only a few years; However, if high-quality brand-name media is used, data is recorded at a moderate speed, and the discs are stored in a cool, dry environment, optical discs can be excellent archival media, and for me personally, this generally means using textual archival media written at the lowest speed, my software and drive support while researching this video, I found this fantastic article from the Canadian Conservation Institute.

This explains the data retention characteristics of drives made from all possible materials and concludes with this excellent table showing their average life expectancy in summary. This tells us that CDsThe highest quality recordables should retain data for at least 20 years and gold records are expected to last. Gold DVDs 100 years or older should last at least 50 years and gold DVDs at least 10 years. In general, rewritable media has a shorter life expectancy, as do high-capacity multilayer disks. Long time viewers of this channel will remember that back in 2016 I made a video on mdisk which is a form of dvdr and bdr media that uses inorganic dyes instead of organic, in theory this allows mdisks to retain data for 1000 years although the Evidence for this is inevitably based on accelerated aging.

Note that the data must be written to M. disks using a special recorder, although it can be read on most standard optical drives, usually when I mention optical media there are comments that no one uses them anymore and that the hardware no longer is available, however, quality internal and external units are still on the market, as are external ones. Pioneer bdr The second best way to immortalize data is to cast it in stone, however, the best way to ensure your information is never lost is to encode it into a self-replicating medium like living DNA. Unfortunately, at this time stone and DNA are not available as a general medium of digital data storage, however, we can all copy the DNA trick of constantly replicating data to maintain it and I hope that in that context this video has given you information Helpful about when you need to duplicate different types of storage media, but that's all for another video if you've enjoyed what I've seen here, hit the like button if you haven't subscribed.

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