The Tool Desk
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What “bit rot” actually covers
“Bit rot” is a convenient shorthand for data decay, but it bundles together three different problems. Keeping them apart tells you what to check and what to do about each.
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- The medium becomes unreadable. The drive, disc, or tape stops giving back its data, either through electronic or mechanical failure or through deterioration of the storage material over time.
- Content changes without detection. A file can be altered or corrupted while it still opens, so nothing looks wrong until you compare it against a known-good version.
- The file can no longer be used. The bits may be intact, yet the format, codec, operating system, or hardware needed to interpret them is gone.
The Library of Congress makes the third point directly. Its guidance on bit-level preservation says that keeping the bits intact “alone, however, does not ensure that content is fully usable in the many ways that users may want to interact with it.” (Library of Congress, Bit Level Preservation and Long Term Usability) A drive that still spins and still reads every sector can be a failed backup if nothing on your system can open its photos.
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You will often see one number quoted for how long a hard drive lasts. The most careful published figures come from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in NIST IR 8387, Digital Evidence Preservation: Considerations for Evidence Handlers (2022), Table 1. The report defines its values as the time an unused, unpowered medium “can be expected to be readable with very high confidence,” and it adds that “most media will last longer than the duration indicated in this table.” (NIST IR 8387)
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| Medium | NIST 2022 longevity value (unused, unpowered, very high confidence) | NIST archival-use statement |
|---|---|---|
| Hard disk drive (HDD) | Less than 2 years | “Not recommended for archival use” |
| Solid-state drive (SSD) | Less than 1 year | “Not recommended for archival use” |
Read these figures as a conservative migration trigger. They are not a date on which your drive dies, and they are not a measured failure rate for consumer drives. NIST’s audience is digital evidence handlers, and its table is built to be cautious. Whether your particular drive lasts two years, ten, or longer depends on its condition, how it was stored, and how often you check it.
The Library of Congress’s core steps for personal files
The Library of Congress’s personal digital records guidance is the most useful starting point for home users. It offers three concrete recommendations. (Library of Congress Digital Preservation, Personal Digital Records) The page does not state a publication date in the version reviewed, so treat its wording as current official guidance rather than a dated study.
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Keep at least two copies on separate media
Make at least two copies of each important file, stored on separate media. The Library names portable hard drives, thumb drives, optical discs, and Internet storage as options. Two copies sitting next to each other on the same desk, or on two partitions of one drive, do not count. The Library also advises keeping copies in locations as far apart as is practical, so that a fire, flood, or theft at home does not destroy every copy at once.
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Check that files still open once a year
Open a sample of your important files at least once a year to confirm they can still be read. Choose files that represent each type you keep, such as RAW photos, PDFs, and video, because a file type can fail on its own even when others are fine.
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Create new copies every five years, or sooner when needed
The Library recommends creating new media copies every five years or when necessary to avoid data loss. This is a recommendation about refreshing your copies, not a promise that any drive will last five years. Replace a copy earlier if a check fails, if the drive shows physical damage, or if it starts reporting errors.
The National Archives gives similar advice for magnetic media, including spinning hard drives. It recommends copying them into a current storage environment as soon as possible, because both media life and the availability of equipment to read them vary. (National Archives, Machine-Readable Media, last reviewed May 2, 2023) The Archives also says it randomly samples its magnetic data tapes each year to check readability. That practice concerns the agency’s tape holdings, not a schedule for consumer hard drives, so use it as a model of routine checking rather than as a replacement interval.
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Detecting silent change with checksums
Opening a file tells you it is readable, not that it is unchanged. The Library of Congress tracks “fixity” by recording cryptographic hashes such as MD5 or SHA values in manifests and comparing them over time. (Library of Congress, Data Integrity Management) A hash is a fingerprint of a file’s exact contents. If the fingerprint changes, the file has changed.
A checksum identifies a changed file. It does not repair one. If a check fails, you still need an intact second copy to restore from. For a home archive, the workflow looks like this:
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- Copy your files to the drive, then generate a manifest of hashes for each folder.
- Linux:
sha256sum *.jpg > manifest-2026.txt - macOS:
shasum -a 256 *.jpg > manifest-2026.txt - Windows PowerShell:
Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 -Path "D:Photos2025*" | Export-Csv manifest-2026.csv
- Linux:
- Store the manifest on the drive and in a second location, so you can verify without relying on the drive you are checking.
- At your annual check, recompute the hashes and compare them with the manifest. On Linux,
sha256sum -c manifest-2026.txtreports each file as OK or FAILED. - For any FAILED file, restore it from the other copy, then confirm that the restored copy matches the manifest before you overwrite anything.
Hashing is most useful for larger or more valuable collections. For a small set of family photos, the annual open-and-look check described above may be enough.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Keeping files usable, not just intact
Preservation covers future access as well as the physical media. The Library’s guidance on bit-level preservation points to the need to plan for obsolescence in formats, software, codecs, and hardware. (Library of Congress, Bit Level Preservation and Long Term Usability) In practice, this means three habits:
- Prefer widely supported, documented formats for files you want to keep, and keep an unmodified original alongside any edited export.
- Note the software needed to open specialized files, and keep a copy of the installer or a working export if the application is proprietary.
- When you move copies to new media, confirm that you can still read them on a current computer. A drive you cannot connect to any machine is not an archive.
Choosing where the second copy goes
The Library of Congress lists several media, and it does not name one as permanent. Compare options on the same six questions:
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- Separation: Is the copy physically apart from the original, and ideally in a different building or city?
- Checkability: Can you verify its integrity with a manifest or an open-and-look test?
- Refresh plan: Do you know when you will replace it?
- Readers: Will you still have a device or service that can read it in five years?
- Cost and access: What does it cost to keep, and can you get your files back quickly?
- Format: Will the files still be usable on the medium you choose?
A portable external hard drive is a practical choice for the second copy, provided you store it away from the original and follow the refresh and check schedule. Internet storage can provide the off-site copy. NIST’s process-industries data handover guide discusses cloud-based services and notes that their cost can become expensive. (NIST, Process Industries Data Handover Guide, Part 1, section 5.5) Compare the monthly cost of that service with the value of the files before you commit, and check its terms for how you retrieve data.
A routine you can start this month
- List the files you cannot replace, such as family photos, tax records, and writing. Ignore everything you can re-download.
- Organize those files into labeled folders by year or project, so that a later check takes minutes rather than hours.
- Make one copy on a separate drive, then a second copy in a different physical location.
- Generate a hash manifest for each folder and store it with the copies.
- Put two reminders in your calendar: an annual open-and-compare check, and a refresh of all copies in five years.
- At each check, confirm you can open the files on a current device, and replace any drive that shows errors or physical damage before the scheduled refresh.
Powering a drive up occasionally is not a substitute for any of these steps. The official guidance centers on copying, checking, and migrating files, not on keeping hardware running.
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