Came across this today: https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=22055773&cid=62881673
How long will current SSDs retain the data without being attached to power? I've had experiences in the past of them fairly quickly just forgetting everything. And I don't know where to look to find ratings on this.
Is this just some random insane person's driveling nonsense, or does he have "flesh on his legs" in regards to this, so to speak? I certainly never heard of this before.
When unpowered, SSDs indeed do have a limited data retention period. This varies a lot depending on the SSD type and on the temperatures during operation and when unpowered.
For instance, a consumer grade SSD operated at 40°C and left unpowered at 30°C had an estimated retention period of 1 year on this page: https://www.anandtech.com/show/9248/the-truth-about-ssd-data-retention (EDIT: this estimation however corresponds to a worst case scenario, where the SSD has already reached its theoretical TBW)
It is better to operate a SSD at "high" temperatures (this is the opposite for the HDDs!) and left it unpowered at low temperatures. In any case, SSDs are hardly usable for archiving...
