SSDs, unless they're very old SLC/MLC ones, do actually suffer from bit rot a lot more than magnetic/optical media. The unpowered retention ratings of new TLC/QLC flash is rather horrifying (months, not years or decades like they used to be).
If you want a reliable SSD for old systems, an SLC-based CF card is a good choice; it doesn't need to be very big (8GB is plenty), and the retention characteristics are also "period-correct".
While these posts are well written, one is about a cheap Chinese flash manufacturer, the other unknown, and the author muses that it may be the control chip or firmware, not the flash itself.
Samsung famously "fixed" the retention problems in firmware by having it periodically rewrite data in the background, but that doesn't work if the SSD is powered off.
SSDs, unless they're very old SLC/MLC ones, do actually suffer from bit rot a lot more than magnetic/optical media. The unpowered retention ratings of new TLC/QLC flash is rather horrifying (months, not years or decades like they used to be).
https://goughlui.com/2023/10/10/psa-ssds-with-ymtc-flash-pro...
https://goughlui.com/2016/11/08/note-samsung-850-evo-data-re...
If you want a reliable SSD for old systems, an SLC-based CF card is a good choice; it doesn't need to be very big (8GB is plenty), and the retention characteristics are also "period-correct".