It’s been a while since you checked your SSD health! Now you can. Follow the guide to get the right ways to check the SSD health update and fix what needs fixing. So, let’s get started.
Ways to check the health of an SSD
There are many ways that one can follow. You can pick whatever works best for you, or multiple of them. It’s alright!
Use official manufacturer software
Official is the right way always. If your drive was made by brands like Samsung, Western Digital, or Kingston, download their official app. Tools like Samsung Magician or WD Dashboard read the drive directly and show your remaining lifespan percentage, operating temperature, total terabytes written, and whether any firmware updates are available for you to take care of. This is usually the most accurate method because the app is curated specifically to your drive hardware.
CrystalDiskInfo on Windows
If you wanna try something different, go for a fast, universal check on Windows: CrystalDiskInfo. It pulls the SMART health data stored inside your SSD and displays a clear summary. You will get a simple health rating like Good 95%, total read/write statistics, and temperature readings. If the drive is starting to degrade, the app highlights problem areas in yellow or red, which will show the severity of the problem.
Run Command Prompt for a quick check
If you do not want to install extra software on Windows, try to open Command Prompt and type wmic diskdrive to get the status. It is simple and straightforward! If the drive is fine, it will return OK. But here’s a catch! It doesn’t really give you a detailed account of how it works and what is what. Rather, it only tells you if it’s working just fine or needs some check-up.
Use Disk Utility and First Aid on Mac
If you are a Mac user, you can open Disk Utility through Spotlight, select your main drive, and run First Aid. This scans for file system corruption and repairs minor volume errors, if any. For deeper hardware health and percentage wear on modern Macs, third parties need to be involved.
Use smartctl on Linux
If your OS is Linux, there’s something more that you can try. So, users can open a terminal and use smartctl from the smartmontools package. Running a simple health command on your drive path gives you raw SMART attributes, wear indicators, and internal log error histories.
Look out for physical failure signs
The last resort is to notice signs. Software stats are helpful, but pay attention to how your computer behaves. Watch out for unusually long file transfer times, random system freezes, files becoming corrupted, or your SSD switching to read-only mode. This means that the SSD is not in the best condition right now.
