Today the units SSD They are so affordable that it is almost absurd to think of building a PC without integrating at least one, since they offer speeds far superior to those of traditional hard drives. However, SSDs have a disadvantage compared to these, and that is that in the event of a power failure, they have a greater risk of this happening. data loss. Fortunately, most SSDs have a mechanism called Power Failure Protection (PLP)and that’s what we’re going to talk about in this article.
It’s not uncommon for you to be working or playing on your PC and have the power go out, causing your PC to suddenly shut down (unless you have a UPS) and potentially data loss or corruption. However, today it is difficult for this to happen, and we will explain why below.
SSD Data Loss Prevention
Power Failure Protection, PLP, Power Failure Protection or to be clear, SSD Data Loss Prevention is a technology designed to prevent SSD corruption or data loss in the event of a power failure. A sudden loss of power can be the result of a power outage, overload, power failure, or simply accidentally kicking the cord and unplugging your PC.
When a power failure occurs, the SSD’s PLP system protects the data by supplying a power supply long enough for the data to be saved and stored properly. We are therefore talking about SSDs being able to maintain a small charge internally thanks to capacitors built into their hardware, although it is true that we are also talking about a charge that only lasts a few milliseconds, but that is enough. to keep this data safe and prevent loss and corruption.
SSDs typically use two types of memory inside: DRAM and NAND Flash. NAND is the type of nonvolatile memory in which our data is stored for long term, while DRAM is volatile memory used to cache data before passing it to the main NAND. During normal device operation, DRAM temporarily stores frequently accessed information, but when the power is removed, this data is lost because, as we mentioned, it is a volatile memoryand if during a power outage there are files that remain half-transferred, that’s where they get corrupted (those not transferred are lost).
Some older generation SSDs incorporated a small battery to prevent this (yes, like the motherboard battery) called BBU (Backup Battery Unit), but that’s something that fell out of favor a while back in favor of this integrated PLP system that we tell you about SSDs now use tantalum capacitors, capable of holding enough charge that the SSD can at least flush DRAM to NAND and no data is lost or corrupted.
As we mentioned earlier, this load lasts only a few milliseconds (between 20 and 40 depending on the SSD and its age, since over time this load decreases due to degradation), but it is sufficient to transfer a large amount of data on modern SSDs. SSD.
Please note that this technology is limited
Like everything, this technology that practically all modern SSDs incorporate has its limits, in addition to what we have already mentioned that it only lasts a few milliseconds. For example, this technology is only prepared for sudden power cuts, so if there is a surgeSSD hardware can also suffer and burn (that’s what UPSs, power strips with guards and, of course, power safety mechanisms are for).
On the other hand, the power provided by PLP is limited, so if there were very large files or too many files in the DRAM, it may not take time to transfer everything and may lead to loss or corruption of data… it is rare that this happens because the mechanism is prepared according to the amount of DRAM and the speed of the SSD, but since it is something that degrades over time, in SSDs that have already a long life, it is something that can happen.
Finally, it should be noted that many SSDs without DRAM, which are cheaper, do not have this mechanism, so we cannot be sure that we will not have problems with the SSD later when the power supply is cut off.
