Hi at all,

it is a well known fact (at least since Samsung's infamous 840 EVO scandal) that data on NAND is volatile. That means it gets harder for a controller to read "old" data.
That is the case for our SD cards in nintendo switch consoles. Last year in October 2022 I bought a large 512GB SanDisk Ultra card (NO FAKE) for 40 bucks. It worked well. Until I updated Mario Kart 8 to its last update a few days ago and was astonished by the long track loading times (40 secs). On my other switch (512GB Samsung drive) there was 9 second loading.
So I switched cards to make sure it was not the SD reader or something else. Same result. Then I refreshed the data on the faulty card (DiskFresh freeware tool by Pugan Software). Of course you can copy your data, then quick format and paste your data back which has the exact same effect: Every sector is written again.
It took me a whole day to refresh the sectors. After that the card was as fast as usual. It maxes out the switch's SD reader for sure. Since I have come by several threads complaining about slow SD cards and those being fake... this is NOT always the case as shown here. simply refresh your data once in a while and it restores your SD card speeds to maximum.

tl;dr:

Not only things in your refrigerator get old as time goes by. DATA GETS OLD AND SLOW. Please refresh your data once in a while. Since we all install our games once and never write data to that spot ever again, it gets slow over time. This is not a huge deal for SSDs (SATA or Nvme, since those have firmware which handle refreshing data accordingly). But SD cards are dumb and the switch obviously does not manage data to keep it fresh.


Best wishes!

 

[gnmmarechal]

I literally just checked a Sandisk SD card I have, bought in 2008, data written in 2008-2009.
0 errors, all the data is still fine.
Card hasn't seen a power input since 2012, MAYBE 2013.

Again, keep backups.
If one keeps backups, data rot shouldn't be an issue.

something something "If you don't back up your data, you don't own it, you're just leasing it from fate."

 

[naddel81]

UPDATE: just to confirm my initial statement... Today I grabbed my dusted o3DS and noticed long loading times on the games that were installed on a quality SanDisk 16GB Card. I refreshed via DiskFresh (took a while!) and tested again. Loading times were reduced by factor 4. So if you plan on game preservation, keep in mind to refresh your data once a year to keep it "fresh". NAND flash is volatile.

 

[naddel81]

Update: Just figured this might be interesting for some:



tl;dr: he tests several SSDs over time and found out that just now after 2 years one out of 4 SSDs became corrupted from just being NOT USED over a long period of time. the read test took 4 times longer than usual and it had bad blocks compared to the last test.
so in conclusion: NAND flash storage is NOT for longterm storage. it is volatile and will become corrupted and slow over time. protect your data and refresh it once in a while (or even better: HAVE BACKUPS!).

 

[Nynrah]

UPDATE: just to confirm my initial statement... Today I grabbed my dusted o3DS and noticed long loading times on the games that were installed on a quality SanDisk 16GB Card. I refreshed via DiskFresh (took a while!) and tested again. Loading times were reduced by factor 4. So if you plan on game preservation, keep in mind to refresh your data once a year to keep it "fresh". NAND flash is volatile.

And still you never bothered to answer anything about the NAND chips inside the console. There's more than just SD cards. Firmware is also stored on NAND(?) chips, which you can't just refresh like that. Your alarmistic message does no good if a console's firmware decays...

Post automatically merged: Dec 7, 2024

Update: Just figured this might be interesting for some:



tl;dr: he tests several SSDs over time and found out that just now after 2 years one out of 4 SSDs became corrupted from just being NOT USED over a long period of time. the read test took 4 times longer than usual and it had bad blocks compared to the last test.
so in conclusion: NAND flash storage is NOT for longterm storage. it is volatile and will become corrupted and slow over time. protect your data and refresh it once in a while (or even better: HAVE BACKUPS!).

Could you at least make clear if it's enough to just power on a storage drive or device or you need some obscure program or method (by regular user standards) to 'refresh' flash data?

 

[naddel81]

about console flash chips: look at the current Wii U scandal. that should tell you all you need to know.

you do not need an "obscure" tool. just refresh the data. an NO, just powering on is not refreshing it. LOL! you want to renew the data and by powering on you do nothing to the single gates and the data stored inside. so the voltage there is still decreasing over time. by reading AND writing to it again, voltage is corrected again.
watch the video!

 

[Nynrah]

From my understanding the Wii U problem had much to do with the particular chip itself rather than a universal phenomenon...