What Programs are you using to test SSD health?

[techiegirl13]

Looking for a good program to test the health and sectors of solid state drives, m.2s, and nvmes. Any suggestions on a program?

 

[Blues]

If you don't have this as a common problem I would look into the manufacturers tool offerings.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

Looking for a good program to test the health and sectors of solid state drives, m.2s, and nvmes. Any suggestions on a program?

I normally use crystaldiskinfo. It gives you the overall health rating and it's guess of the % life remaining in the drive.

 

[thatdude]

@alluseridsrejected, Yep we use CrystalDiskInfo as well. Keep in mind when you say "Guess" that is a pretty accurate statement. SSD numbers can be theoretical.

The SSD has to have SMART for CrystalDiskInfo to give an estimate of expected life. Maybe the manufacturer of the non-SMART SSD has tools that can check it. I wouldn't know because we only use SSDs from Crucial and Samsung that are always SMART.

 

[NviGate Systems]

Hard Disk Sentinel also is a good app, and they offer a portable version that works in WinPE. It can identify serious issues quickly which is why it's top of my list. It usually reports possible issues on first launch giving me an idea of what my next plan of action is. You can also dig into SMART logs and drive log.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I use Crystal Disk Info and GSmartControl both basically report the same information. In my experience those tools typically will report that any SSD older than a year is in pre-failure due to old age. For me, usually when an SSD goes, it's just perfectly fine one day, and the next day it just won't be detected in the BIOS and it's just dead. I take anything CrystalDisk and GSmart say about SSD's with a huge grain of salt.

NOW, spinners, those tools are great for those. Fire either of those up and see bad sectors on a spinner and it's time to replace. In fact if you are working on a computer with a spinner in it either upgrade it to an SSD or decline service to the client. If a client asks me to "do a clean up" on a spinner I just say no.

I've only had two Mushkin SATA SSD's fail on me (when I first started using SSD's they were the cheapest). I've had ZERO Samsung SATA SSD's fail, and in fact I am now replacing computers I put Samsung SATA SSD's in with new computers that have NVme drives in them, and repurpose the Samsung SATA SSD's for external storage or imaging dummies. I've had one Samsung NVme SSD, probably a EVO 970 DOA. Just popped it in, fired it up, loaded Windows, Windows crashed on bootup, then it wouldn't even attempt to bootup, went to reload Windows 10 and it was registering my 500GB Samsung NVme SSD as having like 1MB of storage. Swapped in a new one, no issues.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Always use the manufacturer's tool if an RMA is needed. Most Hard Drive vendors require error codes from their diagnostic program before they will start the RMA. Same with PC vendors. If you are going to RMA the drive with Dell. Dell is going to demand you run their tool.

 

[sapphirescales]

We use CrystalDiskInfo for 99% of our SMART diagnostic needs. If the drive checks out okay with CrystalDiskInfo but it still has symptoms of potential drive problems, we run it through our more advanced diagnostic tools such as PC Doctor Service Center or PC-Check. To be honest though, if a drive problem is even SUSPECTED, it's usually best to just replace it. Drives aren't expensive. 99% of our clients' data will fit on a 250GB SSD, which is less than $50. It makes no sense to spend an hour diagnosing a drive when it's cheaper to just play it safe and replace it. Even if it didn't actually need replacing, you're saving your client money by not charging for the extra labor of diagnosing such a cheap component.

On another note, we also keep a copy of Active @ Hard Disk Monitor. It's intriguing how this program gives you a health bar next to each SMART attribute. That being said, I also use these bars for information purposes only, and it's not very accurate with newer NVMe SSD's (a lot of "unknown attributes").

 

[Markverhyden]

If you don't have this as a common problem I would look into the manufacturers tool offerings.

For SSD's this would be my first go to. CrystalDisk and GSmart are both great tools. And as @nlinecomputers pointed out RMA's require a code from their app for a return if the disk does spin up.

 

[Blues]

I wasn't initially thinking about the RMAs but that is a good point

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If I had a desire to do this, I would use the manufacturers own tools. Since we resell just about exclusively Crucial SSDs...that would be the Crucial Storage Executive utility.

But honestly...if a drive is suspect, since they're so cheap, we just rip and replace, tossing the drive. Not worth an engineers time to diagnose a used part.

 

[thatdude]

@YeOldeStonecat said:

But honestly...if a drive is suspect, since they're so cheap, we just rip and replace, tossing the drive. Not worth an engineers time to diagnose a used part.

This is literally what one of our techs did today while onsite. His "Spidey Senses" started to tingle and cloned it to a new drive. Took less than 20 minutes.

 

[cypress]

But honestly...if a drive is suspect, since they're so cheap, we just rip and replace, tossing the drive. Not worth an engineers time to diagnose a used part.

This.

I also use Crystaldisk Info and Gsmartcontrol as well.

 

[Diggs]

I would look into the manufacturers tool offerings.

Is it just me or are others finding Samsung's Magician a PIA. They want me to boot my bench machine from their software just to do a clean and sanitize of a third party docked SSD? Pffft! I don't have time for that. Not sure what other hoops they make you jump through as I won't use their software any more.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@Diggs Yes, I've found it a giant chore since day one, and this is one of the primary reasons why I jumped to WD. WD's Acronis is annoying too, but all it requires is a WD drive attached to the system with a partition table on it. It doesn't even have to be one of the drives being used in the duplication! So I keep an old WD platter attached to my recovery machine just so I can Acronis things around without jumping through hoops!

Between that and end users finding WD SSD Dashboard easier to use than Samsung Magician... I just don't buy Samsung anymore.

You can also make the boot USB from the tools too if you need it, which is helpful in imaging laptops to a USB attached SSD before drive swap. It's hard to beat Acronis!

 

[Larry Sabo]

WD's Acronis is annoying too, but all it requires is a WD drive attached to the system with a partition table on it.

Don't know if it's still true but you used to be able to hit Ctrl+t to bypass that requirement if you didn't have a WD drive attached.

 

[Alexey]

I use Hard Disk Sentinel, both for spinning drives and SSDs. It works pretty well with both SATA SSDs (which I have in abundance) and NVMe (different protocol).

 

[fincoder]

The SSD has to have SMART for CrystalDiskInfo to give an estimate of expected life.

I believe CDInfo has it's own 'smarts' coded into it for different brands of drives (or controllers). The maximum gigabytes that can be written is documented by the manufacturer, doesn't come from SMART. I think different brands use different SMART fields for different purposes, and CDInfo has some of that knowledge built in too.