I actually just pulled some files off of one from 2004-ish. No issues. Found another one from 2008 about a year ago that had no issues as well. Not sure why… maybe because they were so much lower capacity? Like, one was 64MB and that was huge back then.
They were slc, so the charge ratio was much higher.
Mlc/tlc/qlc drives have to measure a current very precisely, up to 16 values of discrimination, any charge degredation doesn’t change a 1 to a 0, but a 3 to a 2 to a 1 and given enough time, a zero.
I’m sure USB pen drives are even worse.
I actually just pulled some files off of one from 2004-ish. No issues. Found another one from 2008 about a year ago that had no issues as well. Not sure why… maybe because they were so much lower capacity? Like, one was 64MB and that was huge back then.
They were slc, so the charge ratio was much higher.
Mlc/tlc/qlc drives have to measure a current very precisely, up to 16 values of discrimination, any charge degredation doesn’t change a 1 to a 0, but a 3 to a 2 to a 1 and given enough time, a zero.
Also smaller gate dielectric so more leakage.
Those old drives may be using SLC flash. It can have a 20+ year data retention.