<p>I haven't directly studied xray damage to flash media but xrays do cause damage/change to nearly every material that they encounter. By ionizing both valence band and deeper electron shells, the materials are forced by their chemistey and lattice structures to rearrange after an ionization occurs. Theoretically, this physio-chemical change will destroy the stored charge in the region of the disruption. I expect the requisite cross sectional absorption rate would need to be high as the data charge is not contained within a aungle lattice cwll but across many adjacent ones. However, ionized lattice relaxtion is very much an adjacent cell process as the unstable charges migrate to dissapate their high potential. So I would count xrays as a valid way to destroy data on a thumb drive or and media for that matter.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Oct 24, 2011 3:03 PM, "David Tomaschik" <<a href="mailto:david@systemoverlord.com">david@systemoverlord.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Ron Frazier<br>
<<a href="mailto:atllinuxenthinfo@c3energy.com">atllinuxenthinfo@c3energy.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> I saw a memory card in the office store recently where the label said it was<br>
> x-ray proof. I thought that was interesting.<br>
><br>
> Ron<br>
<br>
Neither x-ray scanners nor metal detectors should pose a significant<br>
threat to flash media. Metal detectors may pose some threat to<br>
magnetic media, but even then, I would think it more of a concern for<br>
the lower coercivity media of floppy disks (if anyone remembers those)<br>
than of hard drives. In fact, since about 2006 when PMR came on the<br>
scene, hard drives have been even more resistant to external magnetic<br>
fields.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
--<br>
David Tomaschik, RHCE, LPIC-1<br>
System Administrator/Open Source Advocate<br>
OpenPGP: 0x5DEA789B<br>
<a href="http://systemoverlord.com" target="_blank">http://systemoverlord.com</a><br>
<a href="mailto:david@systemoverlord.com">david@systemoverlord.com</a><br>
<br>
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