Data Hoarder

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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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Which part of external HDD will deteriorate? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Let's say I have an external HDD with 4 TB of data, and I store it in the shelf.

There is no dust going into it, or anything.

I take it out from the shelf after 10 years, will it work perfectly in theory?
If not, what part can deteriorate and why?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

In theory, it should work perfectly.

Some old, old drives had a problem where the spindle wouldn't spin, a phenomenon known as "stiction." Drives made in the last -- maybe -- 15 years seem to be immune.

One other remotely possible issue would be "bit rot." That's where the magnetic polarity of a single bit could change over time, often being influenced by neighboring bits.