How To Check SSD Health on Mac and Windows

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Today, we’ll look how To Check SSD Health on Mac and Windows. If you want your PC to run at its best, you should occasionally check on the health of its most important parts. Your solid-state drive (SSD), which usually holds your operating system and application data, is one of the most important.

SSDs have become very popular over the years, and hard disc drives (HDDs) have been left in the dust in terms of speed (and consumer market penetration). All types of storage media can be used up. In short, it will fail at some point. On the Mac, there are many ways to check the health of your SSD so you can stay ahead of the game.

Most new Macs and Windows computer have solid state drives (SSDs) for storage, which are fast, quiet, and good at what they do. Unlike hard disc drives (HDDs) that use spinning platters to store data, SSDs have no moving parts. This makes them less likely to break, but all SSDs reach a point where you can no longer write to them.

How To Check SSD Health on Mac

Using SSD SMART Status

Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology is built into most SSDs and hard drives made in the last few years (SMART). SMART is made to check on the status and health of storage devices, as the name suggests. In macOS, you can check the SMART status of your SSD at any time:

1. Click the Apple icon in the left-hand side of your menu bar
2. Hold down Opt to change About This Mac to System Information
3. Click System Information, then in the window that appears, select Storage from the sidebar
4. Select the drive you want to view
5. Look in the section below for SMART Status. If it says “Verified,” that means your SSD is working as it should. If it says Failing or Fatal, you have a problem. You should back up any important files because the drive is about to die.

Using Terminal and Smartmontools

On a Mac, you can also use the Terminal app and a third-party tool called Smartmontools to test the health of an SSD. This is a more advanced method. This set of storage tools is available for macOS and OS X, among other platforms.

The process is not easy, though. To get it to work, you’ll need to install a few different pieces of software. You’ll need to install Xcode on your Mac first. This is a set of tools that can be used to make apps for Apple devices like the latest Retina MacBook Pro, iPads, and iPhones.

1. Open the App Store on your Mac, and search for Xcode, and click Get
2. Click Install
3. When the circular progress meter is finished, Xcode is installed
4. Last, open Xcode by going to your Applications folder. Accept the licence agreement and terms and conditions, and when asked, enter your admin password.
5. Click Install, and then wait for it to finish.

Check SSD health using Smartmontools

Installing and running Smartmontools is the next step. You will do this again from Terminal. Here’s how to get Smartmontools and check your SSD with it:

1. In Terminal, type this command and press Return: brew install smartmontools && sudo smartctl –all /dev/disk0
2. When prompted, type in your admin password, and press Return
3. Smartmontools will automatically test your SSD. Scroll down to see a report of your drive’s SMART status.
4. To test your SSD again in future, open Terminal, and type diskutil list, then press Return
5. This will bring up a list of all the drives, both internal and external, that are connected to your Mac. Find entry 0 (zero) in the /dev/disk0 (internal, physical) section and copy the Identifier.
6. Type smartctl -a, then paste in the identifier you just copied, and press Return
7. Smartmontools will run again.

How To Check SSD Health on Windows

Run “Defragment and Optimize Drives”

By organising the data on the SSD, defragmenting and optimising Windows 11 drives makes the PC run faster. It lets the PC’s drives read and write files faster, start up faster, and run more smoothly.

After defragmenting and optimizing a Windows 11 SSD drive, the PC will run better. Standardly, the Defragment and Optimize Drives programme that comes with Windows 11 is used to defragment and optimize SSD drives: You can follow these steps:

1. Press the Windows Key.
2. Search defrag.
3. A Defragment and Optimize Drives app will open. Select it.
4. Next, select the disk drive you want to optimize.
5. Click the Optimize button.

Use Command Prompt to check SSD Health

In Windows 11, you can use the Command prompt (CMD), which is a built-in tool, to check the health of your SSD. To check SSD with CMD, you will use the WMIC (Windows Management Instrumentation Command) command line. Along with other SMART, WMIC helps check the health of the SSD.

1. Press Windows Key + R.
2. Type cmd, then press Enter. The command prompt will appear.
3. In the command prompt app, type “WMIC” and press “Enter.” 
4. Allow the WMIC interface to get ready, then type “diskdrive get status,” and press “Enter.”
5. The command prompt window will display each drive with one of these two statuses:
   1. OK — your SSD is healthy with good performance.
   2. Pred Fail — your SSD is unhealthy and may crash anytime. 

Use SeaTools to Monitor SSD (Seagate) third party tool

First, you’ll need to find, download, and set up the SeaTools application. After the tool is installed, use the steps below to turn it on: If you have a shortcut to SeaTools on your Windows desktop, you can just double-click it to start the programme. If not, do the following. First, you will get the PC ready for SeaTools diagnostics:

1. Close all applications before you start running the SSD diagnostic.
2. Ensure the PC is fully powered. If not, connect it to power. PC diagnostics often take a long time and consume much PC power. Sometimes the PC may Hibernate or go into Standby. Turn both off.

Once the PC is ready, use the steps below to run SeaTools diagnostics:

1. Click on Start > Select Programs > Select Seagate.
2. Select SeaTools for Windows.
3. Allow SeaTools to open, then select the Drives to test your system’s different storage devices. It will also display information about other drives, such as Model and Serial Numbers.
4. You can select more than one drive to test simultaneously if you wish.
5. From the menu of possible diagnostic tests, select the test to run. All Basic Tests are data-safe, read-only tests. The tests are:
   • Fix All
   • Short Drive Self Test (DST)
   • Drive Information 
   • Short Generic 
   • Long Generic 
6. Allow the tests to begin (immediately) and run smoothly.

FAQ

Can I use my SSD on Mac and Windows?

The exFAT file system can be read and written to by both Macs and PCs, so you can use the drive with both. The exFAT file system is the best choice for your LaCie Rugged BOSS SSD.

What is the lifespan of SSD?

Estimates say that the age limit for SSDs is around 10 years, but the average SSD only lasts about half that long. In fact, Google and the University of Toronto did a study together to test SSDs over a number of years. During that study, they found that an SSD stopped working mostly because of how old it was.

What format SSD works for both Mac and Windows?

If you want to get the most out of the drive, you should format it with the computer’s native file system. If you want to use your drive on both a Mac and a PC, you should format it with exFAT.

Why does my SSD work on Windows but not Mac?

Most of the time, a Mac can’t find an SSD because the wires that connect it are broken or missing. It can also happen if the hard drive’s SATA interface is not compatible with the SATA to USB 3.0 adapter.