Which *Should* Last Longer - SD Card or Flash Drive (USB) ?

spackbace on 28/11/2015 - 12:00
Last edited 28/11/2015 - 12:00

So as with most people of this generation, we don't have physical copies of photos of our life, or the kids. Well we have a few, but not photo albums! As a result of the Mrs losing everything off her S6 (lock screen wouldn't accept pin despite different attempts at unlocking), and with no cloud backup, I've decided she's getting 'old fashioned' photo albums for Christmas.

So, that said, I also want to have those same photos on a usb or sd card at the front, for re-printing later on. SD Card has the advantage that it is flatter, so will store better in the album. I thought it might be less likely to fail in the next 10 years.

Obviously there will be a medium to be able to load the pictures within the next 10-15 years. Hell, you can easily find a way to check data on a 1.44 floppy, and can easily view the .bmps off it, and that's going back to about 1990, so 25 years ago!

So, which is more recommended or much of a muchness?

(Oh, and I'm not out to spend tons on something that's supposed to last much longer than the average. All I'm buying is the average product!)

Poll Options

  • 1
    SD Card
  • 1
    USB Drive
  • 17
    Both will be the same
  • 4
    Other Physical Medium (Please suggest)
  • 7
    I'm not sure but I wanted to participate in the vote
Computing

Comments

  • inherentchoice on 28/11/2015 - 12:08
    +2

    Pretty sure SD cards and USB drives share the same internal chips made exactly the same way in the same factories.

    https://youtu.be/kvf29R7nXlM

  • pinchies on 28/11/2015 - 12:52

    I think there is a far bigger difference between buying the cheapest memory storage device, and a good brand name. If it's not a brand name (Sandisk, Sony, Toshiba, Kingston, etc) don't touch it. I'd also recommend not buying the cheapest model available if it is for archival purposes. For really really serious archival purposes, you might buy two cards of different brands.

    Cheaper brands tend to use off spec memory - e.g a 64GB chip that has a lot of dead or faulty segments might be used as a 32GB cheapie.

  • ElWircho on 28/11/2015 - 14:17

    I store every data on TWO different physical hard drives, in case of a fire i am screwed but other than that i'm better safe than sorry. That being said i think it doesn't matter, but making 2 copies and storing them in different locations (maybe .zip them with password as well?) would be my approach.

  • Unbranded on 28/11/2015 - 14:20
    +2

    I read an article recently which recommended CDs or DVDs as having a far longer lifespan and being more reliable than USB or SD cards for backing up of photos long term.

    • Max Power on 30/11/2015 - 21:42

      At least 20 years if kept in a cool and dry place.
      They're cheap so you can easily have multiple copies.

  • ESEMCE on 28/11/2015 - 15:17

    In 10-15 years, I don't think any consumer level backup solution would be reliable.

    Why not turn on cloud backup?
    That's easily the most "long lasting" cause the data centre will have redundancy and maintenance schedules.

    • Davo1111 on 28/11/2015 - 15:54

      cause the data centre will have redundancy and maintenance schedules.

      apparently.

  • scrimshaw on 28/11/2015 - 19:14
    +5

    Article:
    Keeping data for a long time

    At the 2013 Flash Memory Summit Jason Taylor from Facebook, in a keynote talk, presented the idea of using really bad low endurance flash memory for a cold storage archive. According to Marty Czekalski of Seagate at the MSST conference flash writing is best done at elevated temperatures while data retention and data disturb favor storage at lower temperatures. The JEDEC JESD218A endurance specification states that if flash power off temperature is at 25 degrees C then retention is 101 weeks—that isn’t quite 2 years. So it appears conventional flash memory may not have good media archive life and should only be used for storing transitory data.

    and

    At the Creative Storage Conference Bill Cubellis from Sony said that properly made archival grade optical discs should have a shelf life of 50 years. At the Open Compute Project Summit in January 2014 Facebook presented a 1 PB Blu-ray disc storage system prototype with 10,000 discs. Facebook estimated that this system would reduce the storage costs by 50% and the energy consumption by 80% compared to their current cold storage system (probably HDD based).

    so… there you have it. On a spectrum from the worse to the best, consumer grade flash drives and flash memory are actually the worst types of storage mediums with the shortest shelf life, followed by ordinary HDD's and then optical discs. But the reality is that nothing lasts forever, so best to take extra precautions and have multiple copies on different mediums. Even though optical discs are good for long term storage, you still need to provide the optimum environment to keep the discs in (basically, low humidity and protection against physical damage).

    • sellingoutsoon on 30/11/2015 - 07:14

      JEDEC JESD218A endurance specification states that if flash power off temperature is at 25 degrees C then retention is 101 weeks

      Note, when you're using it, it's not in this state. It's only when your not using it that it's in this state. Practically, if you add anything at any time to your SD or USB, the 101 weeks "resets" to zero weeks.

      Takeaway: Use it at least every 100 weeks.

  • retiredfeline on 28/11/2015 - 19:43
    +1

    One consideration is that flash media tends to fail catastrophically; a controller failure can kill all the contents, whereas damage to an optical disk is usually localised, allowing retrieval of the other areas. I've seen the dismay on users' faces when I tell them that all the contents of their SSD are gone forever.

    I backup daily to HD in a NAS, do a weekly backup to writable DVD, and give an encrypted DVD to a reli now and then. But that excludes media so my pictures are at risk from a house fire. Perhaps I should take an encrypted HD to a reli now and then, I have enough old ones lying around.

  • c64 on 28/11/2015 - 20:14

    can't the android lock screen be bypassed? using adb i think

    • spackbace on 28/11/2015 - 20:17

      There's a couple of ways of logging into google or Samsung accounts and remote unlocking, or repetitively entering the wrong code to get a google login instead.

      None of which worked

    • ESEMCE on 28/11/2015 - 20:27
      +1

      You should be able to mount the storage in recovery to get to the files.
      You'll then also be able to Factory Reset the phone to get it useable again.

  • Bonsaichop on 28/11/2015 - 20:22
    +1

    Interestingly enough, I restore vintage computers for a living and recently loaded up tapes for 8k BASIC from 1978 for one of my machines and it read + loaded just fine.

    Alot of it has to do with the environment you're keeping them in, low humidity is key. Between your choices I'd go with a SD card. For me personally, I keep all my data stored on a NAS with two drive redundancy. The especially important stuff gets backed up to a thumb drive locally and super important stuff (i.e. business books) gets back up remotely as well.

  • Sweetnsour on 29/11/2015 - 08:19

    Have multiple media backup so that you can avoid those heartbreaking moments again

  • bambooculm on 29/11/2015 - 09:22

    Having had failures with usb drives and micro sd cards, I favour a brand name DVD for long term storage of photographs etc. TDK dvds are excellent.
    Some of the micro sd cards, especially some sold in Hong Kong are fakes that will fail. It is better to buy Sandisk or Kingston micro sd cards in Australia. For critical long term storage, the brand name dvd is the best option. For those who trust in the cloud, see if you can access your Hotmail emails from the distant past, and you might be surprised.

  • spurf on 29/11/2015 - 11:45
    +1

    I backup all my devices to my media server at home and every fortnight backup that to some external harddrives I store away from my house. Critical data I have backing up to the cloud too. I think it is less important the longevity of the storage medium but having redundency so that if anything fails you have a backup available as there is no such thing as a fail-safe storage medium.

    In your wife's case she should activate Google Photos backup feature on her new phone as they let you backup unlimited photos at ~4MP quality for free.

  • Cbm31 on 29/11/2015 - 14:05

    IMO, what about using cloud base storage, google drive or else.
    If you really want to store huge amount of photo so google dirve is not enough, currently amazon drive provide unlimited photos storage for USD 12 per year.

  • WD TV andSOUND on 29/11/2015 - 22:01

    I have some 1GB & 2GB micro SD cards from pre Smart Phones that have sat in my garage in the old phones with a temperatures of between -2 to 50 degrees Celsius for some 4-5 years used in the first of 3G Telstra LG TU500 phones that still work OK!

    • scrimshaw on 29/11/2015 - 22:53
      +1

      The question is whether or not the data stored inside is still OK and not corrupt.

      the physical cards themselves are pretty durable — Samsung LOVES to point that fact out in their marketing. they don't contain any moving parts, and the flash memory is sealed inside a waterproof casing that protects it from the elements.

      but the actual retention of the data — whether the data stored inside is actually preserved as-is and does not become corrupted or lost over the passage of time, is another story. If you stored 10GB of data on an SD card and a few years pass by, it's likely that some of it will become unreadable.

  • sellingoutsoon on 30/11/2015 - 07:37

    Great post! I was hoping it would get more nerdy, so thanks Scrimshaw for your contribution :) I know data storage can be a fairly dry topic, so why is it so strangely calming?? <happy place>

  • bamzero on 04/12/2015 - 18:25

    Not exactly an answer to your question, but more important is how you backup.

    If its irreplaceable, the 3 2 1 backup rule should keep you covered…

    3 copies of everything.
    2 forms of storage (ie flash + HDD)
    1 off site copy (cloud or physical at another location. No point having all those copies if they burn in a fire)

    Another thing is having a way to test the backups aren't corrupted (and ideally doing it regularly)

    As far as SD vs Flash drive, they are essentially the same inside so I wouldn't count on either outlasting the other. Brand quality may make a difference though.

  • showzen on 08/12/2015 - 04:03

    How about using Google Photos, it automatically backs up the photos off your phone to the cloud.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UeOwvoOsDw (review by The Verge)

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