I have unplugged my SSD drive and put it into storage. How long can I expect the drive to retain my data without needing to plug the drive back in?

1 Comments

It depends on the how much the flash has been used (P/E cycle used), type of flash, and storage temperature. In MLC and SLC, this can be as low as 3 months and best case can be more than 10 years. The retention is highly dependent on temperature and workload.

NAND technologyData Retention @ rated P/E cycle
SLC (single-level cell)6 months
eMLC (enterprise multi-level cell)3 months
MLC (multi-level cell)3 months

[source: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pvaul/en/solid-state-drive-faq-us.pdf ]

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1 thought on “I have unplugged my SSD drive and put it into storage. How long can I expect the drive to retain my data without needing to plug the drive back in?”

  1. David Mitchael

    It is old information and it may be updated but according to the JEDEC who sets the standards it could be from three months to one year. The reasone are based on the usage of the drive while powered on believe it or not. I know that I was surprised with that. There are different life spans for data retention based on enterprise usage and consumer.

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