Data degradation

Not to be confused with software rot.

the material onto which the data is stored. This can

be mitigated by storing discs in a dark, cool location with low humidity. Archival quality discs are
also available, but do not necessarily provide a permanent solution to the onset of data decay or other
types of data corruption beyond a certain amount of
time. Some media (such as M-DISC) are designed
to improve longevity over DVD-R and BD-R.

Data degradation, also known as data decay or data

rot, is a colloquial computing phrase for the gradual decay of storage media. It should not be confused with "bit
rot", dened in the Jargon File as a jocular explanation
for the degradation of a software program over time even
if nothing has changed.[1]

Paper media, such as punched cards and punched

tape, may also experience literal rotting. Mylar
punched tape is available for use in such situations.

Decay of data in memory

Data degradation in dynamic random-access memory

(DRAM) can occur when the small electric charge of a 3 Component and system failures
bit in DRAM disperses, possibly altering program code
or stored data. Semiconductor RAM may also occasion- Most disk, disk controller and higher-level systems are
ally be altered by cosmic rays or other high-energy parti- subject to a small degree of unrecoverable failure. With
cles; such data degradation is known as soft errors.[2]
ever-growing disk capacities, le sizes, and increases in
the amount of data stored on a disk, the likelihood of the
occurrence of data decay and other forms of uncorrected
2 Decay of storage media
and undetected data corruption increases.[3]
Higher-level software systems may be employed to mitigate the risk of such underlying failures by increasing redundancy and implementing integrity checking and selfrepairing algorithms.[4] The ZFS le system was designed
to address many of these data corruption issues.[5] The
Btrfs le system also includes data protection and recov Solid-state media, such as EPROMs, ash memory ery mechanisms,[6] and so does ReFS.[7]
and other solid-state drives, stores data using electrical charges, which can slowly leak away due to
imperfect insulation. The chip itself is not aected
4 See also
by this, so reprogramming it once per decade or so
will prevent data decay. The biggest problem can be
Checksum
nding a clean copy of the master data from which
the chip may be reprogrammed; frequently, by the
Database integrity
time the user discovers the data decay, the master
data may be lost.
Digital permanence

Data degradation can also be used to describe the phenomenon of storage media gradually decaying over the
duration of many years. The cause of data decay varies
depending on the medium:

Magnetic media, such as hard disk drives, oppy

disks and magnetic tapes, may experience data decay as bits lose their magnetic orientation. Periodic refreshing by rewriting the data can alleviate
this problem. Also, in warm and humid conditions
these media, especially the ones poorly protected
against aggressive air conditions, are prone to the
decomposition of the very material they are fabricated from.

Digital preservation
Disc rot
Link rot
Media preservation
Software rot
RAR archive le format has optional recovery

Optical media, such as CD-R, DVD-R and BD-R,

may experience data decay from the breakdown of

PAR2 recovery le format

1

References

[1] Raymond, Eric. Bit rot. The Jargon File. Retrieved 3

March 2013.
[2] O'Gorman, T. J.; Ross, J. M.; Taber, A. H.; Ziegler,
J. F.; Muhlfeld, H. P.; Montrose, C. J.; Curtis, H. W.;
Walsh, J. L. (January 1996). Field testing for cosmic ray soft errors in semiconductor memories. IBM
Journal of Research and Development 40 (1): 4150.
doi:10.1147/rd.401.0041. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
[3] Gray, Jim; van Ingen, Catharine (December 2005).
Empirical Measurements of Disk Failure Rates and Error
Rates (PDF). Microsoft Research Technical Report MSRTR-2005-166. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
[4] Salter, Jim (15 January 2014). Bitrot and atomic COWs:
Inside next-gen lesystems. Ars Technica. Archived
from the original on 23 March 2015. Retrieved 15 January
2014.
[5] Bonwick, Je. ZFS: The Last Word in File Systems
(PDF). Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA).
Retrieved 4 March 2013.
[6] btrfs Wiki: Features. The btrfs Project. Retrieved 19
September 2013.
[7] Wlodarz, Derrick. Windows Storage Spaces and ReFS:
is it time to ditch RAID for good?". Betanews. Retrieved
2014-02-09.

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

6.1

Text

Data degradation Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_degradation?oldid=684477412 Contributors: Zundark, The Anome, Bobdobbs1723, Frecklefoot, Habj, David Latapie, Dysprosia, Wik, Furrykef, Morwen, VeryVerily, Benwing, X-Bahamut, Rolot, Jason Quinn,
Pgan002, Hobart, Gazpacho, Cmdrjameson, Fadookie, ABCD, Mindmatrix, Tickle me, Daniel Lawrence, Quietust, Ysangkok, SpectrumDT, KenBailey, Bhny, Kvn8907, Mysid, JQF, Ocn169, Rwwww, Brambo, SmackBot, ProveIt, Chris the speller, Klichka, GregCutler,
TenPoundHammer, Fuzzbox, A. Parrot, Peyre, CCFreak2K, Hwttdz, Pjvpjv, Nick Number, Drake Wilson, Qwerty Binary, Huttarl, Albany NY, Adot, AndersJohnson, Mendax666, Adavidb, Public Menace, Greg searle, Jhawkinson, Glst2, Locke baron, SimonTrew, ClueBot, Nnemo, Niceguyedc, Enrique r25, Dsimic, Addbot, Ethanpet113, Debresser, AtheWeatherman, Jarble, , Luckas-bot, Yobot,
AnomieBOT, Xqbot, Kwns, Z57N, RjwilmsiBot, John of Reading, ZroBot, Staszek Lem, Sbmeirow, Thedoubledeuce, Muslim lo Juheu,
Misund, 2pem, Haslantis, Sci.templar, Tsidnic Guy, Queyh, Cmlefevre, Monkbot, Kjerish, Miraclexix and Anonymous: 62

6.2

Images

File:Ambox_important.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Ambox_important.svg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work, based o of Image:Ambox scales.svg Original artist: Dsmurat (talk contribs)
File:Edit-clear.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Edit-clear.svg License: Public domain Contributors: The
Tango! Desktop Project. Original artist:
The people from the Tango! project. And according to the meta-data in the le, specically: Andreas Nilsson, and Jakub Steiner (although
minimally).

6.3

Content license

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