March 9, 2026
Bit rot? Or bit not?
Flash media longevity testing – 6 years later
USBs beat bit rot for 6 years — comments erupt over “real” storage risks
TLDR: A long-running USB test found zero data decay after six years, including one drive left untouched the whole time. Commenters are split: some say this eases fears, others claim real risk comes from long dormancy and advocate old-school hard drives, multiple backups, and avoiding cloud lock-in.
Six years, zero errors, and a whole lot of internet side‑eye. A DIY tester stuffed ten 32GB USB sticks with random data, checked them yearly, and just reported year six: still no bit rot. The science is steady, but the comments? Absolute fireworks. One camp cheers the clean results; the other screams, “Not so fast!”
Top skeptic “monster_truck” argues the annual rewrites are a cover-up, saying silent data decay happens when drives sit untouched. Cue plot twist: the tester’s fifth drive apparently slept for six years and still read clean. Meanwhile, the practical crowd wants details: “Powered on or powered off?” asks jmakov, while others trade tools and tips. ComputerGuru drops a nerdy flex with hddrand to write random data and verify it later, and nullorempty asks how to do an in‑place rewrite without copying. Over in disaster‑prep land, one commenter rejects cloud subscriptions and plans a “spinner” (old-school hard drive) plus a USB, hoping at least one survives.
The test schedule (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 15, 20, 27) is now a cliffhanger series, with “boring years” teased on the blog. Want the nerd receipts? There’s even an FAQ. Until year eight drops, the community verdict is split: science says chill; vibes say “trust nothing without three backups.”
Key Points
- •Ten 32‑GB Kingston USB flash drives were filled with pseudo-random data at the start (Year 0).
- •Annual tests from Years 1 through 6 reported zero bit rot on all tested and re-tested drives.
- •After each test cycle, the tested drives were rewritten with the same data to maintain the dataset.
- •Drive introductions are staggered, with first-touch years planned at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 15, 20, and 27.
- •The author expects flash drives to last over 10 years and plans the next update in two years when the sixth drive is first tested.