All data storage devices degrade over time, for computers the standard was hard disk drives “HDD” which are being replaced with Solid-State Drive “SSD”. HDD used a mechanical head spinning above a disk to read magnetic data changes similar to a record, SSD disks use memory chips to store these changes removing the mechanical moving parts. Although SSD are much more resilient than HDDs they also wear down as the flash chips have a limited number of writes.
A large majority of data recoveries are due to this ongoing degradation, to ensure you have no data loss or downtime it is important to monitor your storage disk’s health.
Windows does not have any visible notification of disk health issues, it does log severe failures to its Event Logs and selected laptops have inbuilt monitoring at startup for disk failure.
Below I will guide you through setting up software to monitor your computer drives alerting you of any issues. I recommend CrystalDiskInfo a freeware application to monitor disk drive health.
Setup disk monitoring
- Download CrystalDiskInfo Standard from the download page.
- Double-click on the download file to install and install with all the default options.
- Once installed CystalDiskInfo will launch showing the current health of your drive. In the below example, the SSD is at 71%. Any health below GOOD the drive will need replacing.
4. From the function menu you need to select “Resident” and “Startup” This will ensure that it remains running and starts with the computer to constantly monitor your drives.
5. Finally select the Functions menu the Alert Features and ensure “Alert Sound” and “Event Log”
6. When you close the application it will minimize the task tray and a healthy drive will show a Blue square with the temperature reading in the middle. Monitoring the temperature can ensure your computer is correctly cooled and the drive is not working excessively.
