# So i heard SSD drives lose data if unpowered for long time



## KippLink (Nov 14, 2021)

This is a brand new discovery i wish i hadn't made but apparently if SSD drives are left without power from 6 months to a year they will become corrupted. I use some of them for backups which arent powered for months and im curious has anyone experienced any data loss from SSD due to lo long storage without power?


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## Ennui Elemental (Nov 14, 2021)

Not something I've really had to deal with yet, in specific to SSDs.  I had thumbdrives that were years old and relatively untouched that still had their data, but that's probably a bit different.  I'm guessing SSDs have a small battery in them like a CMOS battery that probably runs dry sooner because SSDs are just a WEE bit bigger than your average CMOS and constructed differently.  My old PS2 memory cards are likely all dead as doornails with no usable save data on them by now, though.  Same for my SNES carts.


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## KippLink (Nov 14, 2021)

F***ing Hostile said:


> Not something I've really had to deal with yet, in specific to SSDs.  I had thumbdrives that were years old and relatively untouched that still had their data, but that's probably a bit different.  I'm guessing SSDs have a small battery in them like a CMOS battery that probably runs dry sooner because SSDs are just a WEE bit bigger than your average CMOS and constructed differently.  My old PS2 memory cards are likely all dead as doornails with no usable save data on them by now, though.  Same for my SNES carts.


It's kinda odd tbh i never heard it before until these articles started popping up all over, i'm not really sure if this is true at all to begin with but been told SSD drives store data in electrons that are in something called charge trap that over time have a energy leak if not used for prolonged period of time and data becomes corrupt. Im just wondering if this is all correct and verified and if i should do backups on regular hdd instead.


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## Deleted member 106754 (Nov 14, 2021)

If you plan on filling a drive and have it laying around for a longer time like several years, sure.

Though if you use it as a regular storage drive and plug it in a few times each year I don't really think there's much to worry about if it's an SSD. I think I'd probably take the durability over the need of powering it up once in a while for valuable data just incase it would be dropped. Then again, most people don't really pack their most personal backups with them in their travel bag wherever they go, so an HDD is still a valuable option.


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## KippLink (Nov 20, 2021)

Redlinelies said:


> If you plan on filling a drive and have it laying around for a longer time like several years, sure.
> 
> Though if you use it as a regular storage drive and plug it in a few times each year I don't really think there's much to worry about if it's an SSD. I think I'd probably take the durability over the need of powering it up once in a while for valuable data just incase it would be dropped. Then again, most people don't really pack their most personal backups with them in their travel bag wherever they go, so an HDD is still a valuable option.


Thanks for the input!
I did a bit more research and apparently every article returned similar result where SSD drives are best described like some sort of battery except instead of losing its charge it loses data. Someone else mentioned that SSD drives are designed to be used within the computer as a internal component and not exactly for backups as a separate drive that stays unplugged for a long amount of time. So the classic HDD drives are apparently a much more reliable solution for storing backups that are unplugged for years without ever needing to be connected.


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## ben909 (Apr 21, 2022)

having left an old ssd only laptop alone for about 2 years and then turned it on, i can say i doubt this personally, although cannot be sure


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