Am Sun, Mar 09, 2025 at 10:32:37PM -0500 schrieb Dale:

> I suspect it is safer than on a USB.  I believe that the old spinning
> rust is likely the most durable long term storage without powering up
> during storage.  I once hooked up a bunch of old IDE drives that hadn't
> had power to them in years.  I went poking around and all the data was
> still there.  It had some old videos, pictures, text files and other
> stuff.  They all appeared fine to me.  Those drives sat in a out
> building with no climate control at all.  Some were sitting on a shelf
> bare, no static bag or anything.  They stored just fine.  Heck, I was
> worried about the circuit boards more than anything.  Still, they worked. 

HDD certainly have good long-term data retention properties in their 
magnetic platters. Their weakness is the mechanics. Especially with very old 
disks that haven’t run in ages, you might get stuck bearings because the 
lubricant lost its viscosity. Or on newer disks the helium diffuses out. 
AFAIK, helium drives should still work without it, but at reduced 
performance and they’ll run hotter.

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