Android 15 can tell you how long your phone's storage chip will last (www.androidauthority.com)

submitted 5 months ago by FragmentedChicken@lemdro.id to c/android@lemdro.id

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[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 35 points 5 months ago

OK, this is really cool. We have practically zero insight into the longevity of these things. Even if you know what chips are being used, lack of information about the wear leveling algorithms means there isn’t much that we can say about the real world performance under different loads.

[-] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

We have zero insight into the longevity of flash memory because it doesn't matter: whatever it is, it's a lot longer than the phone's planned obscolescence.

That's why you've never heard anybody complain about their saved data getting corrupted: their device has long since hit the landfill before that happens.

[-] henfredemars@infosec.pub 13 points 5 months ago

I must disagree. I’ve encountered a couple of phones from people in my family that could not be restored because the flash itself was bad. The flash memory specifically failed and required them to purchase a new phone.

We’re talking 5 to 7-year-old phones here. It does happen. There are plenty of people who will never replace their phone until it breaks.

For another example, consider that Google added forward error correction to their system images because they encountered issues with failing memory chips in the wild. This was an effort to keep devices booting and operable for longer.

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 9 points 5 months ago

Can't agree with that, I've definitely had corrupted data events happen in the past.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 months ago

Care to share details?

[-] Liz@midwest.social 7 points 5 months ago

It depends on the storage medium. SD cards will fail if you use them enough. Photographers and videographers will run into to problem every once in a while, especially if they're a professional. Why SD cards in particular have a tendency to fail, I can't exactly say. It might just be their form factor making internal physical damage more likely. I say internal, because the issue is that a normal looking SD card will one day turn up corrupted for no obvious reason.

I haven't heard of any other type of flash memory having lifespan issues for regular consumers.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

I've used the same microsd for years. Granted it isn't heavily used.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 3 points 5 months ago

Yeah it's at the level of frequency where an ordinary user with one SD card is unlikely to have a problem, but if photography is your hobby it's only a matter of time. In a rather informal poll conducted by Chelsea and Tony Northrup, they basically found that two thirds of the most active photographers had experienced at least one SD card failure. It basically was just a direct correlation with how many photographs you've taken.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

Flash has a limited number of writes so that makes sense

[-] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 5 months ago

Yeah but the practical write limit tests I've seen for SSDs (from ten years ago) put it well beyond what even a professional photographer would do. We're talking SSDs that sustained constant writing of random data 24/7 and didn't fail for more than a year. There's just something about SD cards. As further "proof," photographers don't complain about their SSDs failing on them, even though those should have more write cycles than their SD cards.

[-] mudeth@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 months ago

SD cards don't perform wear leveling while ssds do. This is why there are specific SD cards meant for surveillance cameras. They have additional wear levelling circuitry at the expense of speed.

So photographers who fill up their sd cards end up writing over the same spots repeatedly and wear them out.

[-] Liz@midwest.social 1 points 5 months ago

No shit? Well today I learned. That's definitely going to reduce lifespan. I guess that means you should try to fill your card as much as possible before formatting it.

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 5 points 5 months ago

Not a whole lot to share. Phone was unstable for a bit and one day refused to boot past a blank screen. As far as I could tell from trying to pull data off it, something got corrupted and it could no longer boot but my data was all encrypted with no way to pull it off.

[-] stuner@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

I have seen multiple (quality) SSDs with unrecoverable read errors after a few years. All of them had plenty of spare area left. Maybe some kind of retention issue?

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

How does that apply to android?

[-] stuner@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

The UFS storage inside an Android smartphone is basically an SSD. Both use flash memory, so it's reasonable to expect that they have similar failure modes. But I'm not sure if you could diagnose such a failure on Android.

[-] biscuit@lemdro.id 7 points 5 months ago

I take it you weren't around for the Nexus 7 (first edition)?

[-] redcalcium@lemmy.institute 5 points 5 months ago

I wonder if it's still true now that most phone manufacturers enable Memory Extension by default. This feature will likely reduce storage lifespan especially on low end devices that don't have big RAM.

[-] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I've had two phones die because of the storage chip, around 5-6 years after buying them.

[-] baatliwala@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Does anyone care? In all these years I've never seen people complain that their "storage chip" is dead.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 5 months ago

Why would they want to tell you that? They want phones to be disposable

[-] RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

So they will tell you after latest 2 years that your phone is going to die soon*

*soon defined as anytime between now and the next 10 centuries

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

Probably not 10 centuries, just 10 years.

this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024

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