Question whats your long term storage in critical fields and use cases: SSDs vs HDD?

thedighubs · May 1, 2025

good evening dear friends

I was looking at Amazon and some electronic distributors for a long term cold storage device.

Well - belive me: traditionally I've always gone with HDD but since SSD prices have dropped significantly, So i'm wondering if it is worth going for a SSD now?

question: well what do you think

- i am trying to get an update of current state of the storage technology and also seek to find answer for wheather i should make backups to HDDs vs SSD.

background : well some insights into my current Situation: I have around 750 gb of Family photos from 2017 on a Western Digital external HDD, it lasted for 8 years and data is well and good right now. (fingers crossed ).
But now i am a bit frightened. I already have backups on another machine and the external HDD. It's now time again to migrate my external HDD to new Hardware; thats what i am thinking over - day by day: and I am conflicted on what should I choose moving further.

so the question is: whats your long term storage in critical fields and use cases

what do you reccommend!?

look forward to hear from you guys..

tcsenter · May 1, 2025

Ultrium LTO-5 SAS 5.25" Tape Drive

Pardon Our Interruption...

1.5TB native, up to 3.0TB compressed (depending on how compressed files already are) per cartridge. ~$15 per cartridge. Get two cartridges. Make duplicates. Store separate locations in decent conditions. Die before cartridge becomes unreadable.

thedighubs · Jun 4, 2025

hello and good day dear tcsenter
many thanks for the reply

thank you very much for sharing your ideas with us.

tcsenter said:
QUANTUM Ultrium LTO-5 SAS 5.25" Tape Drive

Pardon Our Interruption...

1.5TB native, up to 3.0TB compressed (depending on how compressed files already are) per cartridge. ~$15 per cartridge. Get two cartridges. Make duplicates. Store separate locations in decent conditions. Die before cartridge becomes unreadable.

very interesting. I think that i wiill take this step (and way) into account .
Working with cartridges is a good idea. I had such ones in earlier times

thanks tcsenter

have a great day

mikeymikec · Jun 4, 2025

IIRC SSDs that aren't connected do suffer from bit rot when disconnected for long periods of time. There's at least one study on the topic and I don't remember which one I'm thinking of. IIRC one factor is temperature variance between the worst case scenario while on and comparing that to its off temp.

Ken g6 · Jun 4, 2025

mikeymikec said:
IIRC SSDs that aren't connected do suffer from bit rot when disconnected for long periods of time. There's at least one study on the topic and I don't remember which one I'm thinking of. IIRC one factor is temperature variance between the worst case scenario while on and comparing that to its off temp.

Yep. Here's the most recent one I've seen:

MSN

In summary, the year-one fresh and well-worn drives had no issues. However, the year-two heavily worn SSD had file corruption and performance was poor.

I remember an older study that made me think an SSD in the freezer might work, but I really don't know, and I wouldn't trust important data to trying.

thedighubs · Jun 4, 2025

he there dear Ken G6

- many thanks

I remember an older study that made me think an SSD in the freezer might work, but I really don't know, and I wouldn't trust important data to trying.

fully agreed here..

tcsenter · Jun 4, 2025

thedighubs said:
very interesting. I think that i wiill take this step (and way) into account .
Working with cartridges is a good idea. I had such ones in earlier times

Looks like brand new LTO-5 cartridges are about $25 ~ $30, not $15 that seems more like used/refurb price.

tcsenter · Jun 4, 2025

Buying a Used LTO-6 Tape Drive: What to Look For and Where to Shop

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DavidC1 · Jun 12, 2025

mikeymikec said:
IIRC SSDs that aren't connected do suffer from bit rot when disconnected for long periods of time. There's at least one study on the topic and I don't remember which one I'm thinking of. IIRC one factor is temperature variance between the worst case scenario while on and comparing that to its off temp.

Western Digital had a graph that essentially showed the speed of the media is proportional to the retention rate of the media. It kinda makes sense if you think about it. Speed means changing the state of the media, and if it's fast, it means it is easy to delete, even naturally.

So HDDs were slow, but had the longest retention time, then it's SSDs, then it was Optane, then it was DRAM, then you have caches.

SSD - 10 year according to IEEE, but actually shows degradation before that
Optane - 3 months for 905P
DRAM - microsecond range
Cache - nanoseconds

Flash drives can be even worse if you have the super cheap throwaway variants like on USB drives. I remember older drives had to be thrown away after 1-2 years.
@thedighubs

background : well some insights into my current Situation: I have around 750 gb of Family photos from 2017 on a Western Digital external HDD, it lasted for 8 years and data is well and good right now. (fingers crossed ).

You might not really need to worry as long as it's stored in a cool location away from sunlight. There's no reason for things such as a head crash when it's barely moving because it's a storage device. Buy two or three rather than one because failures are always possible. Media might be ok, but the electronics can fail.

mikeymikec · Jun 12, 2025

DavidC1 said:
Western Digital had a graph that essentially showed the speed of the media is proportional to the retention rate of the media. It kinda makes sense if you think about it. Speed means changing the state of the media, and if it's fast, it means it is easy to delete, even naturally.

I think it's only kind of true in very broad strokes and is a statement that terminates scientific inquiry rather than encourages it. It also doesn't make much sense because USB flash drives are basically the same tech as SSDs, poor-quality HDDs will in all likelihood write slower than good quality ones and so on. There's also say QLC/PLC vs MLC to consider. I also think it's highly unlikely that optical media, tape media, floppy disk media fare better than HDDs, partly because HDDs have one big advantage in that the data stored is in an air-tight container.

I actually have floppy disks with unaltered data from >30 years ago that still work, but I suspect that most professionals in the field of long-term data integrity would file such experiences under "defies expectations" rather than meeting them.

IMO the topic is a lot more complicated. Planning for long-term data integrity in offline media has to factor in the local environmental factors where the media will be stored, and an obvious reason why is say a damp environment will attack the chemical dye layer on optical media. Protecting against a nuclear blast has to factor in EMP vs magnetic media. Magnetic media also needs to be protected from magnetic sources (AFAIK shifting magnetic sources specifically). SSDs apparently don't like temperature variations.

Perhaps an air-gapped, air-tight container (preferably with the air gap being temperature-regulated) that also acts as a faraday cage would be a one-size-fits-all long-term media storage container? Disclaimer: I am not a qualified scientist, I finished with GCSE-level qualifications in the sciences.

I think if I were planning for the worst then ideally I'd throw in as many media types as possible into that container with the same data on.

DavidC1 · Jun 12, 2025

mikeymikec said:
I think it's only kind of true in very broad strokes and is a statement that terminates scientific inquiry rather than encourages it. It also doesn't make much sense because USB flash drives are basically the same tech as SSDs, poor-quality HDDs will in all likelihood write slower than good quality ones and so on.

In the big picture, it's actually quite remarkable that it works that way.

It's just that WITHIN it, it varies tremendously from the skill of the teams, the quality of the material used(thus the cost). USB Flash has to be super cheap, so it has to use super low quality ones, and thus cannot have better reliability than the regular SSDs.

I actually have floppy disks with unaltered data from >30 years ago that still work, but I suspect that most professionals in the field of long-term data integrity would file such experiences under "defies expectations" rather than meeting them.

Which is much much different than say with SSDs that can have corrupted data in few years, or USB flash in just few months and quite regularly at that!

SLC/MLC/TLC/etc is also the same thing. That it's slower, but it's also cheaper.

Some are obviously better than others at the same price. But when comparing things like HDD vs SSD vs Optane vs DRAM, you cannot make up the gap by skill differences or price. It's too large of a gap.

Magnetic media also needs to be protected from magnetic sources (AFAIK shifting magnetic sources specifically). SSDs apparently don't like temperature variations.

They are both prone to magnetic and temperature variations, if it's strong enough. I have tried taking neodymium magnets and swiped it across the surface of the HDD, and it didn't really do anything. The metal enclosure shields the platters from being affected.

With SSDs, if you can get the magnetic field strong enough(very, VERY) strong, you should also be able to change the electrons being held in the field.

Normally if you are using them for storage, neither will you put it in extreme heat nor purposely near a strong magnet.

Question whats your long term storage in critical fields and use cases: SSDs vs HDD?

thedighubs

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