Like I’d imagine there’s gonna be a lot of rain over time if I want this time capsule to last like idk 10 years? 30 years?

Is there like a box so tough its indestructible?

Can animals dig it up if I bury it?

How deep do it bury it?

Is the earth’s magnetism gonna affect the hard drive? (Or is there a better medium?)

Like I want this to be like very low budget, I don’t have millions to build an actual timecapsule like some organizations have done. Is there some cheap box that’s waterproof to protect a hard drive from damage for like 30 years buried in the ground?

    • NostraDavid
      link
      fedilink
      21 month ago

      SSD would be 100% dead unless you buried it with a power source.

      Huh? Why? Should SSDs not be able to contain data without power?

      • Rikudou_Sage
        link
        fedilink
        71 month ago

        That’s one of the downsides of SSDs, you lose data really fast without power. Like, after a year, your data will almost sure not be intact.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        51 month ago

        Flash memory stores data as a voltage level, with different values being a tiny distance apart. The voltage slowly leaks out of the cells and has to be periodically topped off.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        41 month ago

        No, they’ll start to corrupt within a year or two. They need to be powered to retain data.

        After 30 years you can forget it.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        11 month ago

        There was a recent paper on this. The failure rate was higher than expected. You’ll have to search for it; I didn’t save a link.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          41 month ago

          Leave a USB drive in a drawer for a couple of years and you can prove this one at home.

          That’s why my backup drive is an old spinny hard drive.