potential longevity issues with making Windows' restore media?

[VirtualLarry]

Just thinking, there has been some discussion about unpowered NAND longevity being specced at 1 year for MLC used in SSDs at rated max P/E cycles.

But flash drives use much cheaper, poorer-quality NAND.

Could longevity be a problem, for someone that gets a new Windows 8/8.1 PC, does the "restore media creator", and saves it to a bootable USB flash drive, and puts it away for five years, until they need to resell the machine, or more likely after that time, the HDD dies and needs replacement?

 

[ArisVer]

Interesting question. Does that affect only the files written on the flash drive or does the flash drive die completely?
A way around this is to create a CD/DVD.

 

[Elixer]

Just when you thought it was safe to toss the optical media... 😉
All NAND based stuff is not deemed for "archival" use, so, the only other options are optical media, or tape, or a HD I suppose.
Come to think of it, it is also possible to have bad things happen to NAND, like if you were at a airport, and they x-ray the device.

 

[VirtualLarry]

All NAND based stuff is not deemed for "archival" use

There is the SanDisk MemoryVault, which is basically a flash drive, that they claim will store your data for "up to 100 years".

 

[Elixer]

There is the SanDisk MemoryVault, which is basically a flash drive, that they claim will store your data for "up to 100 years".

They basically did temp changes.

...accelerated temperature cycling and the Arrhenius acceleration factor were used to simulate the effects to data retention over long durations of memory usage.

I don't buy it, without knowing more, like what NAND it uses, does it have a battery or capacitor in it, and other things.

Of course, it also depends on how much is written to it, since http://www.flashmemorysummit.com/English/Collaterals/Proceedings/2011/20110810_T1B_Cox.pdf says "Enterprise is rated for 3 months @ powered-off state"...(for SSDs)