How to Check SSD and Hard Drive Health and Remaining Life in Windows 11

SSDs are quiet and fast, but they rarely give warning signs like strange noises before they fail. If a drive holds precious files such as photos, documents or recorded videos, it is worth checking its condition now and then. Windows 11 can show an SSD's estimated remaining life and temperature.

1. Check drive health in Settings

• Go to Settings → System → Storage → Advanced storage settings → Disks & volumes.
• Select the disk you want to check and click Properties.
• The Drive health section shows Estimated remaining life (%), Available spare and Temperature.
• This section appears only for NVMe SSDs. For SATA SSDs and hard drives, use method 2 below.
• If a drive looks likely to fail, Windows may also show a notification telling you to back up your data.

2. Check every disk with PowerShell

• Right-click the Start button → open Terminal (Admin).
• Enter Get-PhysicalDisk | Select FriendlyName, MediaType, HealthStatus to see Healthy, Warning or Unhealthy for each disk.
• Enter Get-PhysicalDisk | Get-StorageReliabilityCounter | Select DeviceId, Temperature, Wear to see the temperature and Wear (how worn the drive is, in %). The closer Wear is to 0, the closer the drive is to new.
• Some values may be empty depending on the drive. In that case, the SSD maker's free management tool can show more detail.

3. What to do with the numbers

• If the remaining life drops below 10% or the status is Warning, back up important files elsewhere right away and plan a replacement.
• If the temperature regularly goes above 70°C, check the airflow under your laptop or the heatsink in your desktop.
• SSDs slow down when they are nearly full. Keep about 10–20% free.
• SSDs don't need defragmenting. Windows automatically runs "Optimize" (TRIM) for them.

If you record your screen often

• Long screen recordings write a lot of data to the SSD. Set your recording program's save folder to a healthy drive with plenty of free space.
• For videos you want to keep, make a second copy on an external drive or in the cloud.

Reference: Microsoft Learn – Get-StorageReliabilityCounter