Flash memory cards (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, xD, Memory Stick and Smartmedia) are nigh-indestructible (I once put a brand-new Exilim digital camera through the laundry: the camera was toast, but the SD memory survived and is still in use today!).
The one question I have is how these things fare against time itself, given that CDs and DVDs tend to delaminate, tapes crumble, and HDDs' bearings seize up — it'd be great to have media that you could bury in a time-capsule for a couple decades with confidence.
They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy.
Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived these six tests.
Most of them did fail to get through two additional tests – being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree.
(via Engadget)
