A ~300MB hard drive from my father's mid-1990's laptop is working just fine after ~26 years.
A SanDisk 64 GB SD card from 2013 (written to only once) also has 100% data integrity.
A Samsung MicroSD card from 2015 has a few damaged files. The artefacts of a damaged photo actually change upon each read!
Two 2014 Transcend MicroSD cards (32 GB) are 100% readable, while another one from Transcend from the same year with half the capacity strangly has damaged files. This is strange because retention expectancy usually is shorter on higher capacity cards due to smaller transistors.
But a MicroSD card from Hama had damaged photos and videos all over the place after just two years.
We have perfectly functional HDDs from the 2000s, but some online forum users report HDD failure after two years.
Obviously, quality brands matter. But it almost appears that the reliability of data storage involves luck as well.
A **~300MB hard drive** from my father's mid-1990's laptop is working just fine after ~26 years.
A SanDisk 64 GB SD card from 2013 (written to only once) also has 100% data integrity.
A Samsung MicroSD card from 2015 has a few damaged files. The artefacts of a damaged photo actually change upon each read!
Two 2014 Transcend MicroSD cards (32 GB) are 100% readable, while another one from Transcend from the same year with **half** the capacity strangly has damaged files. This is strange because retention expectancy usually is shorter on higher capacity cards due to smaller transistors.
But a MicroSD card from Hama had damaged photos and videos all over the place after just two years.
We have perfectly functional HDDs from the 2000s, but some online forum users report HDD failure after two years.
Obviously, quality brands matter. But it almost appears that the reliability of data storage involves luck as well.
(post is archived)