What data storage medium can survive a solar flare comparable to, or greater than, the 1859 Carrington event?
A coronal mass ejection (CME) causes changes to the earth's magnetic field. For magnetic media, e.g., hard drives, magnetic tape, and floppy disks, can the magnetic field during a solar storm directly overwrite or destroy data?
Note well that a Faraday cage does not shield against magnetic fields, only electric fields. And there is no such thing as a magnetic shield, or else it would be possible to build a perpetual motion machine.
A changing magnetic field induces an electric current, observed as static electricity during the Carrington event. Can those induced currents, for example in conductive packaging around data storage media, then create magnetic fields that overwrite and destroy data on magnetic media?
Can those induced currents damage the electronic components of a hard drive? If so, the data might survive on the hard drive platters, but it will be extremely expensive to access, requiring clean-room disassembly then installing the platters into a working compatible hard drive.
Can those induced currents damage the electronic components of a flash drive? Could they cause bits to flip?
Induced currents are expected to affect and damage the electricity grid. What kind of power fluctuations will the grid experience, and how will they affect data storage equipment connected to the grid?
Can induced currents in the metal (reflective) layer of a optical disk (CD-ROM, DVD) physically damage the disk? (Similar to the extreme demonstration is in a microwave.) Can induced currents cause heating and melt the dye layer that encodes the data?
All these questions could be answered in a lab. (All I could currently find on the internet is bad information not supported by experimental results.) If everything fails, paper is looking pretty good.
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