Also, they don't explain which of the various attributes or variables are worth our attention, making us drown in data.īefore attempting to understand which SMART attributes are relevant, we first have to differentiate between the main types of SSD and HDD failures: predictable and non-predictable. For example, some manufacturers store power on-time data as hours, while others measure it in minutes or seconds. Still, there are many inconsistencies in the statistics because many of the hard drive manufacturers use different definitions and measurements. The system provides a great deal of internal data. However, know that, apart from some singular attempts ( Google, Backblaze), most of the S.M.A.R.T. If you want to get an in-depth idea of all the SMART attributes, as there are about 50 of them (raw read error rate, spin-up time, reported uncorrectable errors, power-on time, load cycle count, etc.), visit this webpage. SMART keeps track of a series of variables whose number and type vary from drive to drive, which are indicators of its reliability. □ What it does is an entirely different story, though. How does SMART do that? You might be tempted to think that SMART can magically guess if your drive is healthy. That means, plainly speaking, that SMART should supposedly be able to tell you if your hard drive or solid-state drive is about to stop working!ĭrive health information is provided by SMART SMART was invented because computers needed something that could monitor the health state of their hard drives. It is independent of your operating system, BIOS, or other software. SMART, also written as S.M.A.R.T., is a technology found inside HDDs and SSDs. Its clever name is actually an acronym for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. SMART is a system that monitors the internal information of your drive. Is there anything else you would like to know about SSD and HDD SMART?. How to use SMART to predict the failure of an HDD or SSD (essential values to check).How to read SMART values and attributes.In other words, the higher the MTBF hours, the less likely your SSD will malfunction. For example, if the MTBF of your SSD is 1 million hours, it means its probability of failure is 0.03% within the warranty years, even if you use it at least eight hours every day-according to WePC. However, it doesn't predict how many hours your SSD will last, but it will tell you the probability of your SSD malfunctioning within the warranty period. For instance, an SSD with a warranty of five years or 600TB TBW (Total Host Writes) will probably last longer compared to an SSD with three years warranty or 200TB TBW.Īnother factor that you could use to estimate the lifespan of your SSD is the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) hours provided by the manufacturer in the spec sheet. Of course, it doesn't mean that the warranty will reveal your SSD remaining life, but it could help you to estimate the probability of its failure. Most SSD manufacturers have a warranty that you could use to predict how long your SSD will probably last at the bare minimum. This is how much total data has ever been written to this drive.Įstimate Remaining SSD Lifespan Using Warranty and MTBF Hours Look at the top right for Total Host Writes (or it might just be Host Writes depending on your version).If it says anything else, then you may want to investigate further-but that's beyond the scope of this post. If it says Bad, the SSD life is over, and you would be lucky if it works if it hasn't failed already.However, if it says Caution, it means the SSD is degrading, and you should back up your files and replace it before it's too late.If it says Good, then you don't have anything to worry about yet.Under Health Status, it should also tell you the condition of your SSD.It should have a health percentage like a battery to inform you of the SSD's remaining life-the higher the Health Status percentage, the longer your SSD will last. It features enough information that it's actually useful and not overwhelming, and best of all, it's completely free to use.ĭownload: CrystalDiskInfo for Windows (Free, open-source) CrystalDiskInfo is a really handy little program you can use to estimate the remaining lifespan of your SSD.
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