Re: OT: flash memory longevity?

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 02:48:50 -0700, Rui Maciel wrote:

After having a few nasty surprises with some CDs where I stored
important data, I've started searching for a good way to store data
that didn't lead to data corruption in the span of a year or two.

Makes me wonder how you stored the CDs. At any rate, I'm convinced that
the best solution is multiple archives - spread around. I archive my
photos by: storing them a couple of different places on hard disks on two
or three different computers and backing up to CD. I also don't usually
erase the memory cards until they are full - in my case that takes a
while. I've had photos stored on a CF card for about three years with no
data loss.


The first thing that crossed my mind was flash memory cards. They are
starting to get affordable, their capacity ranges from a couple of MB
to 8GB and their size makes them pretty handy. Yet, I haven't found a
single shred of information regarding data longevity. There is plenty
of information regarding the typical number of write cycles that a
typical flash memory card can handle but I couldn't find a single
piece of information about how long it can be expected that the data
remains stored and retrievable from a flash card.

So, can anyone help me? How long can I expect data to remain stored in
a flash memory card?


Thanks in advance
Rui Maciel

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