Patch, Or Your Solid State Drives Roll Over And Die

[corbe]

Patch, Or Your Solid State Drives Roll Over And Die

by: Jenny List   
December 10, 2019

Expiration dates for computer drives? That’s what a line of HP solid-state drives are facing as the variable for their uptime counter is running out. When it does, the drive “expires” and, well, no more data storage for you!

There are a series of stages in the evolution of a software developer as they master their art, and one of those stages comes in understanding that while they may have a handle on the abstracted world presented by their development environment they perhaps haven’t considered the moments in which the real computer that lives behind it intrudes. Think of the first time you saw an SQL injection attack on a website, for example, or the moment you realised that a variable type is linked to the physical constraints of the number of memory locations it has reserved for it. So people who write software surround themselves with an armoury of things they watch out for as they code, and thus endeavour to produce software less likely to break. Firmly in that arena is the size of the variables you use and what will happen when that limit is reached.

Your Drive Is Good For About 3 Years And 9 Months

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https://hackaday.com/2019/12/10/patch-or-your-solid-state-drives-roll-over-and-die/

[Elderberry]

I guess they weren't programming during  Y2K?

[Snarknado]

The quick fix will be to

a) treat the variable as an unsigned integer

b) mark calendar to look for new job before 12/31/2022

[roamer_1]

Your Drive Is Good For About 3 Years And 9 Months

I hate to tell you this, but flash technology has a limited amount of writes in it anyway - And if my experience trying to recover from corrupted flash drives is any indicator, when it goes, for real, its gone. If it's a journaling/directory error, or a corrupted file messin with it, fine. otherwise, you're just about done.

Storage is cheap people. Back it up!