24LC256 Serial I2C EEPROM IC (DIP-8, 256Kbit)

A microcontroller's RAM forgets everything the instant power drops, and even its own internal flash has limited write cycles and capacity, so projects that need to save settings, usage logs, or calibration data reliably over many power cycles often reach for a dedicated external EEPROM like this one. The 24LC256 stores 256 kilobits of data, speaks the same simple I2C protocol as countless other sensors and modules, and is rated for roughly a million write cycles per address, far beyond what a typical settings-storage use case would ever approach. It is a common building block in projects that need persistent configuration storage, data logging that survives a restart, or a simple non-volatile scratchpad shared between multiple microcontroller runs.