Hacker News Reader

I think hard disk drives, tapes and cds have a pretty good offline life, and should last a lifetime if you, like me, are not planning on surviving to advanced age.

View on HN

CDs and DVD degrade over time, I think this is primarily those with home recording CD / DVD-Rs. I am not sure what the difference is with Factory made CDs or DVDs like Music CD or DVD from Playstation 2 but those seems to be fine. I think I need to look this up that you have brought it to my attention.

But do HDD last longer if they are unplugged. And only start up when they are needed? In that case wouldn't an NAS putting HDD to sleep most of the time would prolong the life time of HDD?

Be very aware -- SSD must be plugged in otherwise they may lose data after a few years.

The time varies with temperature. Search for SSD data retention for more info.

The JEDEC standard is the one to read.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com