I somehow have a bunch of blank cd and dvds that i got from thrift stores and parents. There good for some linux os's but besides that im not sure what else to put on them or do with them. I would like to create a sort of binder for rainy days with various media but im stumped.

Im asking what type of media i should put on theses dvds/cds. I would do music but im not the biggest music fan sadly.

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[–] brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

VS HDD seems a bit unlikely. The typical cheap optical media isn't designed or meant for long term archival. There are more expensive types that are meant for long term storage but I'm pretty sure that's not what OP is talking about, especially if it's just random blank discs from thrift stores, etc.

But to your point even cheap optical media might outlast SSDs since those tend to lose their saved data if stored unpowered for x years.

[–] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

even cheap optical media might outlast SSDs since those tend to lose their saved data if stored unpowered for x years.

I wasn't aware of this. Would you happen to have any handy links where I could read more?

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It depends.

Modern SSDs come in various types. Ones that store multiple bits per cell, do so by using multiple charge levels to represent multiple bits. Instead of one and zero, there can for instance be four different charge levels to represent 00, 01, 10, and 11, allowing a single cell to store two bits.

That makes a cell much more sensitive, since a smaller change in the charge is required to change the stored value. As opposed to an SLC cell which would simply be empty or charged depending on whether it's storing a 1 or a 0.

Good SLC nand should be able to store stuff for a decade just fine, if not longer. This is what'll be in any decent USB drive, as they're intended to spend the vast majority of their time unpowered.

QLC nand uses 16 different charge levels to store 4 bits per cell. That means a 1/16 change in charge would start corrupting data. PLC is in development, and will use 32 levels to store 5 bits. This'll be in your budget multi-terabyte SSDs.

Temperature also plays a role. The nand cells will lose charge at different rates at different temperatures.

You'll want to consult the specs of whatever drive your looking at. The variance is huge. From some drives needing a firmware level "data-refresh" that's constantly keeping the data from disappearing (people seeing bit-rot was a problem with some drives back when TLC first became common), to stuff that's fine for decades.