Bit rot

Bit rot (data rot, data decay) is informal shorthand for the gradual, often unnoticed corruption of digital data on storage media—through physical media degradation, latent sector errors, or software bugs—without an obvious single failure event.

Detection and defence

Checksums, scrubbing, redundant arrays, and geographically separate copies detect and repair rot before it accumulates. Preservation systems schedule fixity checks as routine maintenance rather than one-time backups.

See also

• Digital preservation
• Checksum
• Format migration

Sources

• Storage-engineering and digital-preservation handbooks.
• Common encyclopedic definitions rewritten for this wiki.