many of the responses to this question involve degradation of the device itself due to reading/write.
I’m curious If i had data on a device and I left in in a drawer or attic for years, how long could it sit there before it just goes bad on its own? No reading and writing. Say you wanted to save home movies or photos etc. Something you don’t look at every day but would one day like to dust off and show your family.
Roughly 10 years without being plug.
After that the data can be corrupted, even if the drive still work.
Recent ssd’s claim to retain data for much longer periods of time, untested in real life situations though. But true that non recent ssd’s lose data after a while when not being turned on