Essential Guide: How to Check Your SSD Health

One of the fundamental components of our computer is the hard drive. While it's true that most PC components can be replaced over time, the valuable data stored on the hard drive cannot be replaced without a backup. Therefore, it's important to be able to check the SSD's health on a Windows computer.

How To Check SSD Health

Keep in mind that the hard drive acts as the heart of our PC, as every piece of information flows through it. All data is stored on the hard drive, from work documents and vacation photos to videos, music, and even almost all firmware. That's why it's important to know beforehand what might be wrong with our HDD or SSD to avoid data loss.


A realistic desktop computer screen displaying Windows Command Prompt performing SSD diagnostics. 

 

Check Your SSD Health Using Command Prompt

Windows has two command-line tools, CHKDSK and WMIC, that allow us to locate and repair errors on our hard drive.

Diagnose SSD Issues with CHKDSK

Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 have a built-in command-line tool called CHKDSK, which scans our hard drive to find system errors and bad sectors. It also helps us check its health by showing us any potential errors. The tool will attempt to analyze and fix any problems and will inform us if it finds a major issue that it cannot resolve.

To use it, we must first launch the Command Prompt. 

To do this, we will use the search bar in the Start menu, type CMD, and select Run as administrator.

Next, to perform a disk scan and repair, we type:

chkdsk C: /f /r /x

Run CHKDSK

Keep in mind that C: corresponds to the drive letter we want to analyze. The /f parameter makes the command automatically fix all detected errors. The /r parameter, in turn, makes it find all bad sectors on the disk and, if possible, retrieve information about them.

To fix errors with CHKDSK on NTFS-formatted drives, we type:

chkdsk /scan

This way, if we notice any suspicious behavior on the disk drives, we can use this command before things get worse.

SSD displaying smart health monitoring features and performance metrics on a digital interface.

Quick S.M.A.R.T. Status Check with WMIC

This is a command-line application that allows us to perform many administrative tasks, including checking the health of our hard drive. 

To do this, it uses the S.M.A.R.T. function on the disks to view their status and provide a simple conclusion, since it's a very basic command.

To do this, we launch Command Prompt and run it as administrator. Then we execute the following command and press Enter: wmic

Next, we type this other command and press Enter: diskdrive get status

WMIC
Once analyzed, it will show us the current status. If everything is fine, it should simply display OK. If we see a different message, something is not working correctly. If we see the message "Pred Fail," it means Windows detected an error during analysis, and that's not a good sign.

nfographic illustrating four methods to assess SSD health, including software tools and physical checks.

 Top Tools to Monitor SSD S.M.A.R.T. Data

We can also use third-party applications designed to help us check our hard drive's status. These programs use the S.M.A.R.T. function on hard drives to retrieve and display data.

CrystalDiskInfo: Your Free SSD Health Companion

If we prefer a free tool, CrystalDiskInfo is a great option, as it is both simple and powerful. With it, we can obtain all the required information such as temperature, health status, hard drive type and characteristics, as well as other attributes like read and write error rates, activation time, etc. 

Once we run the tool, we must wait a few seconds for it to load and display a complete report of our hard drive, including its health status, temperature, operating hours, transfer mode, and supported features. The Function tab provides access to its advanced options.

Hard Disk Sentinel: Advanced SSD Monitoring

In addition to the programs we've already mentioned, HDS stands out for its continuous monitoring of our hard drive and SSD. And, as is common with these programs, it displays S.M.A.R.T. values and analyzes the health of the disk itself. Furthermore, if it finds any problems, it alerts us. And it doesn't just analyze S.M.A.R.T. data; it can also email us any data it finds concerning. Therefore, we're talking about a tool that does a very good job of preventing many failures.

Besides that, it allows us to run tests, measure hard drive temperature, and export detailed reports. However, we must say that its free version has quite a few limitations compared to the paid version.

Visual alert poster with the message "SSD Warning Detected: What Next?" designed to guide users on subsequent actions.

 What to Do If Your SSD Shows S.M.A.R.T. Errors

If CMD or any of the programs we saw in the previous section indicate that our hard drive is about to fail and have detected serious errors, then we have a problem. The hard drive might continue working for months or years, or it might suddenly stop working. 

How to Check Your SSD Health

Our recommendation, as always, is not to risk anything going wrong. Therefore, the answer is simple: you have to buy a new hard drive.