A useful video on storage media life expectancy

[Quartz]

Explaining Computers has a comprehensive video on storage media life expectancy.

Lots of useful links below the video too.

 

[adrichardson81]

I find luck plays more of a factor than anything, especially if you're talking cold storage.

 

[Quartz]

I find it's like wine: keep it in the cool dark - except for near granite - and your data will last longer.

Says the man living in the Granite City/

 

[SpellowHouse]

Interesting.

I am going to do exactly what he said an individual shouldn't do, but I have found SSD's to be far less reliable than HDD's. Over the years I lost one HDD, but have lost loads of SSD's. And it's not to the NAND wearing out, either, it's to general hardware failures.