Solid state disk (SSD) technology has not lived up to its promise as a storage medium, according to a survey of users, two thirds of whom have lost data on SSDs.

The study, by disaster recovery firm Kroll Ontrack, suggests that NAND-based drives have achieved massive penetration with 90 percent of respondents saying they have used it. However, despite its growing popularity in data center servers, SSD is not in quite the solid state that was promised.

Not so solid

According to the study, flash has grown in popularity as storage medium of choice for servers, with one fifth of all systems (20 percent) now storing data on the expensive but supposedly reliable SSD technology. The growth in popularity of SSDs is even more intense among consumers, with 75 percent of those surveyed saying they use SSD in laptops or mobiles and 61 percent using it in their PCs.

If the consumer-led adoption of SSDs results in more of the technology being used in data centers there could be trouble, the report suggests, since 61 percent of the study group reported that they had lost data and fewer than 20 percent were successful in recovering it.

Not only is SSD less reliable than the public was led to believe, but recovering data from this medium is unexpectedly difficult, said Paul Le Messurier, Kroll Ontrack’s programme and operations manager.

Few buyers realize that the more scattered format for storing information on flash makes it harder to recover data than when restoring the linear data patterns from traditional hard drive media, according to Le Messurier. Worse still, he said, data layout and organisation on SSDs are still not standardised, meaning that recovery has to be customized for each model of every manufacturer’s device. Though this creates more business for data recovery specialists like Kroll Ontrack, there could be unexpected costs for end users, he warned.

“Despite the many benefits of SSD technology, data loss continues to impact SSD devices,” said Le Messurier. The number of request for SSD disaster recoveries has been doubling every year since 2011, he added.

The survey was conducted among 2,000 IT professionals.