I assume this blog is a re-hash of the JDEC retention standards[1].

The more interesting thing to note from those standards is that the required retention period differs between "Client" and "Enterprise" category.

Enterprise category only has power-off retention requirement of 3 months.

Client category has power-off retention requirement of 1 year.

Of course there are two sides to every story...

Enterprise category standard has a power-on active use of 24 hours/day, but Client category only intended for 8 hours/day.

As with many things in tech.... its up to the user to pick which side they compromise on.

[1]https://files.futurememorystorage.com/proceedings/2011/20110...

> I assume this blog is a re-hash of the JDEC retention standards[1].

Specifically in JEDEC JESD218. (Write endurance in JESD219.)

In the longer JEDEC overview document[1] it explains that in the ideal 'direct' testing method retention testing is only performed after the endurance testing. Which is only after the drive has had its max spec'd TBW written to it.

While if the endurance testing would exceed 1000 hours an extrapolated approach can be used to stress below the TBW but using accelerated techniques (including capping the max writable blocks to increase wear on the same areas).

Which is less dramatic than the retention values seem at first and than what gets communicated in articles I've seen. Even in the OP's linked article it takes a comment to also highlight this, while the article itself only cites its own articles that contain no outside links or citations.

[1] https://www.jedec.org/sites/default/files/Alvin_Cox%20%5BCom...

With 1 year power-off retention you still loose data, so still a compromise on data retention