If you want to keep your PC running at its best, you need to check the vitals of critical components from time to time. One of the most important is the Solid State Drive (SSD), which mostly holds your operating system and application data. SSDs have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and likewise have long lagged hard disk drives (HDDs) in terms of performance (and consumer market penetration).
However, if you want to make sure your SSD is performing at its best, it’s a good idea to run health checks from time to time.Unfortunately, Samsung 980 Pro owners know this very wellHere are some of the signs that your SSD could fail and ultimately lead to catastrophic consequences:
- Overall PC runs slower than usual
- Application launches slowly or crashes
- Frequent Blue Screen of Death errors
- SSD flags as read-only
Luckily, there are several ways to monitor the health of your SSD using SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) built into your storage device and software utilities that connect to it.
Monitor SSD Health Using Windows 11 Command Prompt
Sure you can download and install apps like CrystalDiskInfo and AIDA64, but Windows 11 also has built-in analytics tools.
1. Click the search button from the taskbar
2. Type “CMD” press enter
3. Type “WMIC” press enter
Four. Type “diskdrive get status”second hit enter
You will see one of two results at the command prompt. If “OK” is displayed, the SSD is working properly. If you see “Pred Fail”, it is highly likely that your SSD is malfunctioning, so we recommend backing up your data as soon as possible.
Check SMART using CrystalDiskInfo
CrystalDiskInfo is a handy utility that takes advantage of SMART for SSDs and reports their values in an easy-to-use interface.
1. Download and install CrystalDiskInfo From the app publisher’s website.
2. Open CrystalDiskInfoall relevant information related to SSDs and HDDs will be displayed immediately.
In this case, the “Power On Hours” value for the SSD in this system is 18,857 hours, and we can see that it accumulated 7,654GB worth of writes during its lifetime. It also shows details such as the current temperature of his SSD and overall health. The life remaining of the installed SSD is 95% (good), which refers to its wear leveling count.
Check SMART with AIDA64 Extreme
1. Download and install AIDA64 Extreme (30-day trial version) From the publisher’s website.
2. Open AIDA64 Extreme and Click on the storage icon from the main menu.
3. Click smart.
Like CrystalDiskMark, AIDA64 Extreme reports SMART data, but in a slightly different way. AIDA64 indicates a drive endurance estimate of 100% and reports lifetime writes in terabytes. It also shows the total “power-on hours” of 785 days. Also shown are the same SMART attribute values (threshold, current, worst).
Some SSD manufacturers offer their own free drive health utilities that provide more than just stats.
Seagate’s sea tool It offers SMART reading capabilities similar to AIDA64 Extreme and CrystalDiskInfo, including attribute tracking and power-on time, but can also run multiple non-destructive diagnostic tests. It also works with non-Seagate drives.
The short self-test completes within minutes and simply reports whether the test passed or failed. The Short Generic Test also gives a pass/fail rating and takes about a minute to run.
SeaTools can also attempt to fix the error (if the previous test indicated an error) using the Fix All Short and Fix All Long commands. Fix All can repair and replace bad blocks, so the app warns you to back up your data before proceeding.
samsung magician software (opens in new tab) is another popular utility with SMART diagnostics and the ability to monitor SSD health. Since this is Samsung specific, this software can also let you know if her SSD in your system is genuine. Samsung also loads software with performance benchmarks, over-provisioning support for improved performance/lifespan, and the ability to perform firmware updates for SSDs.
Yet another option is Western Digital DashboardThis is similar in concept to Samsung Magician Software. This allows him to check the health/SMART status of the drive, monitor the temperature and even upgrade to new firmware all from one utility.
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