Unlike a hard drive, an SSD has no moving parts to wear — but the flash memory inside does wear, cell by cell, every time it’s written to. The good news is you can check exactly how much life is left in a couple of minutes, and estimate how long the drive will last. Here’s how to run an SSD health check, which numbers actually matter, and the warning signs to act on.
Every SSD cell can only be written a finite number of times. Health tools read the drive’s own wear counter, so you can see how much you’ve used and roughly how long is left — long before it becomes a problem.
An SSD stores data in flash cells, and each cell can only be erased and rewritten a limited number of times — its program/erase (P/E) cycles. The drive spreads writes evenly across all its cells (wear levelling) to make that last as long as possible, and manufacturers rate the total you can write over the drive’s life as TBW — terabytes written. For a typical consumer SSD that’s hundreds of terabytes, which most people never come close to using. The point is that SSD ageing is measured in data written, not years or hours — and that’s exactly what a health check reads.
Every SSD keeps its own health data via SMART, and free tools read it for you. On Windows, CrystalDiskInfo is the standard: it shows an overall health status and, crucially, a “Percentage Used” or “Health Remaining” figure derived from wear. Manufacturer utilities — Samsung Magician, Crucial Storage Executive, WD Dashboard and the like — do the same and often show TBW used directly. On a Mac, the drive’s SMART status shows in System Information, and the free smartctl tool gives the detail. The numbers that matter are the wear/percentage-used indicator, the count of reallocated or bad blocks, and whether SMART overall reads “Good” or has flipped to “Caution”.
For normal use — a laptop or desktop doing everyday tasks — a modern SSD will typically outlast the computer it’s in, often reaching well beyond five to ten years before wear becomes a factor. You’d have to write enormous amounts daily to hit the TBW rating within a drive’s useful life. Wear becomes a genuine concern mainly in heavy write workloads (video editing scratch disks, databases, busy servers) or with very cheap, low-endurance drives. If your health tool shows, say, 90% life remaining after a few years, you’ve nothing to worry about; if it’s dropping fast or already low, plan a replacement.
Because SSDs give less warning, watch for the specific signs: files or folders that suddenly become corrupt or unreadable, the drive dropping to read-only (a protective mode a dying SSD enters), frequent freezes when saving, or the disk vanishing and reappearing. Any of those, plus a SMART status of “Caution”, means back up now and replace the drive. If an SSD has already failed or dropped out, don’t keep power-cycling it — SSD recovery is possible but time-sensitive, and continued attempts can make the controller worse. A failed SSD or NVMe drive is a single-drive recovery from £300 +VAT.
Use a free tool that reads the drive SMART data. On Windows, CrystalDiskInfo shows an overall health status and a percentage-used or health-remaining figure; manufacturer tools like Samsung Magician or Crucial Storage Executive do the same. On a Mac, check the SMART status in System Information or use smartctl. Look at the wear indicator, the bad-block count, and whether SMART reads Good or Caution.
For everyday use, a modern SSD usually outlasts the computer, often well beyond five to ten years, because you would have to write enormous amounts of data to reach its TBW rating first. Heavy write workloads or very cheap low-endurance drives wear faster. A health tool showing most of the life remaining after a few years means there is nothing to worry about.
TBW stands for terabytes written, the total amount of data the manufacturer rates the drive to handle over its life. SSD wear is measured by data written rather than by age, so TBW is the real lifespan figure. Most consumer drives are rated for hundreds of terabytes, far more than typical users ever write.
Files becoming corrupt or unreadable, the drive switching to read-only, frequent freezes when saving, the disk disappearing and reappearing, or a SMART status of Caution. SSDs give less warning than hard drives, so treat any of these as a prompt to back up immediately and replace the drive.
Often, but it is less certain than with a hard drive and is time-sensitive, because TRIM and the SSD controller can make recovery harder. Stop power-cycling a failed SSD and get it diagnosed rather than retrying it. A failed SSD or NVMe drive is a single-drive recovery from 300 pounds plus VAT after a free diagnostic.
If your SSD is corrupting files, read-only, or has dropped out entirely, don’t keep retrying it. Send it in and we’ll tell you what’s recoverable — free diagnostic, fixed quote first.