Some SSD not suitable for long-term storage

We recently had a case like this, with an SSD that had been here for several months. Ultimately it turned out to be possible to access and remove the data. To our surprise, it turned out that 80% of the data was corrupt.

Further investigation by the developer of our tools revealed that some SSDs use TLC-based memory chips. These memory chips store the data as small charges. Over time, these charges leak away and nothing remains of the data. This is especially quick with these TLC memory chips.

Suppose you go on leave and leave your laptop at home, switched off. When you return after two weeks, switch it back on and you will notice that the speed is only one fifth of the original speed of the hard disk. How does that happen? When switched on, the hard disk notices that the data has already become somewhat corrupt and corrects this using the ECC codes.

This requires overhead and slows down the speed considerably. After some time, all code should have been corrected and the speed should return to normal.

However, do you want to use this SSD as a backup drive that you only take out every few months, or you use it to save a project, for example? that you won't need it back until much later... BAD IDEA! After a few months you will see that your data has disappeared or is severely corrupt!

SSD drives based on other types of memory chips are less sensitive to this. We have not yet received any reports about possible data disappearance, but my advice is to be careful. Do not use these drives as archive drives that you then put on the shelf to use again within a few months/years.

This technology is still too young to have 100% confidence in it. If you use them, always make a good backup on a regular hard disk!