SSD Data Refresh

As I've heard in many places, most predominantly on the techreport.com, an unpowered SSD will begin to lose data over time. Especially near the end of it's life.

When the drive is powered on is the controller periodically refreshing the data to prevent this from happening?

Could data be stored for long periods of time on an SSD by periodically connecting it to a power supply?

If yes, how long would it need to be connected for this kind of background process to finish?

Solution 1:

Power-on data retention for most SSDs is virtually unlimited. This is because most newer SSD controllers implement patrol read and patrol scrub algorithms that periodically read all LBAs to repair or refresh them as necessary.

The algorithms are very controller-specific and in most cases not even known so it's not possible to answer your last question.

Note: Power-off data retention for SSDs decreases as temperatures rise.