How to Check Your Hard Drive's Health

1. External Hard Drive For Mac
2. Check Hard Drive Health Windows 10

May 24, 2012  This works for all hard drives, whether it’s an internal drive, an external drive, or a boot disk, though the process is slightly different for boot drives. Checking Hard Drive Health on Mac. The first thing you’ll want to do is check the hard drive health, this is done with a process called verification, and it’s quite simple. Click on the Kingston SSD Manager (KSM) link to initialize the software download. Locate your download and extract the contents. Run the KSM Setup executable as administrator. Follow the prompts within the Setup Wizard and proceed with KSM software installation. Once your installation is complete, the system may require a reboot.

Every hard drive dies eventually. Here's how to prepare for its demise.

We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use.

Your hard drive hasn't been acting the same lately. It's starting to make clicking or screeching noises, it can't seem to find your files, and it's moving really slowly. It might be time to say farewell—but here's what you should do before it goes to the big data center in the sky.

Every hard drive dies eventually, and when it's near death, you'll see the signs: strange noises, corrupted files, crashing during boot, and very slow transfer speeds all point to the inevitable end. This is normal, especially after your drive is more than a few years old. On older spinning drives, moving parts like the motor can degrade over time, or the drives' magnetic sectors can go bad.

Newer solid-state drives (SSDs) don't have moving parts, but their storage cells degrade a little bit every time you write to them, meaning they too will eventually fail (though SSD reliability is much better than it used to be).

Unless your drive experiences excessive heat or physical trauma, it'll probably fail gradually. That means even if your drive isn't making strange noises, you should keep an eye on its health once in a while, so you can prepare for death before it happens. Here's how to do that.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.

Check Your Drive's S.M.A.R.T. Status

Most modern drives have a feature called S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) that monitors different drive attributes in an attempt to detect a failing disk. That way, you can be ready to replace your drive before it dies of old age.

Windows

In Windows, you can quickly check the S.M.A.R.T. status of your drives from the Command Prompt. Just right-click the Start menu, select Run, and type 'cmd' or type 'cmd' into the search bar. In the pop-up box, run:

wmic diskdrive get model,status

It will return 'Pred Fail' if your drive's death is imminent, or 'OK' if it thinks the drive is doing fine.

Mac

On a Mac, you can check S.M.A.R.T. status by opening Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities/, clicking on the drive, and looking at 'S.M.A.R.T. Status' in the bottom left, which will either read 'Verified' or 'Failing.'

More Detailed S.M.A.R.T. Information

However, this basic S.M.A.R.T. information can be misleading, since it only lets you know when your drive is near death—but you can start to experience problems even if the basic S.M.A.R.T. status is okay.

For a closer look, I recommend downloading CrystalDiskInfo for Windows (free), or DriveDx for macOS ($20 with a free trial), both of which will offer up more detailed S.M.A.R.T. information than your computer provides on its own.

Instead of saying your drive is 'OK' or 'Bad,' like the built-in tools do, CrystalDiskInfo and DriveDx also have more intermediary labels, like 'Caution' or 'Warning,' respectively. These labels apply to hard drives and SSDs that are starting to wear down, but aren't necessarily on their deathbed (you can read more about how CrystalDiskInfo applies those labels here).

For example, my drive above has a few bad and reallocated sectors, and I haven't run into any issues—probably because those bad sectors weren't housing any actual data at the time. But if even one of those bad sectors lands on a file you need, it can be rendered corrupt. So that 'Caution' label is usually a good indicator that you should back up the drive and think about replacing it soon—even if you aren't having problems yet.

If you want an even deeper, more accurate picture into your drive's health, check its manufacturer's website for a dedicated tool—for example, Seagate has SeaTools for its drives, Western Digital has Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for its drives, and Samsung has Samsung Magician for its SSDs. These tools can sometimes take into account certain technologies specific to their hard drives and SSDs. But for most people, CrystalDiskInfo will give you a decent ballpark recommendation for just about any drive.

If Your Hard Drive Is Dead (or Almost Dead)

Drives with the 'Caution' or 'Pred Fail' status won't necessarily fail tomorrow. They could chug along for a year or two, or be dead as a doornail in a week. But if you're getting warnings, it's time to back up your files before your drive kicks the bucket.

Now is not the time for a full backup, however: you don't want to stress the drive with too many reads, or it could fail while you're backing up. Instead, plug in an external drive and copy your most important files onto it—family photos, work documents, and anything else that can't easily be replaced. Then, once you know those are safe, you can try doing a full drive clone with something like EaseUS Todo Backup Free (Windows) or Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac).

External Hard Drive For Mac

If your hard drive has already stopped working, things get a lot tougher. You can try popping the drive in the freezer, which may allow you to get a few more minutes or hours out of the drive—enough to get your files off. If that doesn't work, though, your only option is a professional data recovery service like DriveSavers, which can cost $1,000 or more. But if you have priceless family photos on the drive, it may be worth it to you.

Prepare for Hard Drive Failure NOW

It's not a matter of 'if' your hard drive will fail—it's a matter of 'when.' All hard drives fail eventually, and if you want to avoid losing all your important files, you absolutely have to back up your computer regularly—including when the drive is healthy. I know, I know, you've heard it before...but are you actually doing it?

Take some time tonight to set up an automatic, cloud-based backup like Backblaze. It only takes 15 minutes and it is one of the best things you can do to protect yourself from heartache later on. If you can't stomach the $5 monthly price, then at least back up to an external drive using Windows' built-in File History tool or your Mac's built-in Time Machine feature. But just know that won't protect you in case of fire or theft, and the peace of mind you get from cloud-based backup is priceless.

Yes, good backup costs money, but it costs a heck of a lot less than getting your data professionally recovered. And with a backup, you'll never sweat the small stuff. Even if your drive failed catastrophically with no warning, you can get back up and running in no time.

After isolating an issue on your Mac to a possible hardware issue, you can use Apple Diagnostics to help determine which hardware component might be causing the issue. Apple Diagnostics also suggests solutions and helps you contact Apple Support for assistance.

If your Mac was introduced before June 2013, it uses Apple Hardware Test instead.

How to use Apple Diagnostics

1. Disconnect all external devices except keyboard, mouse, display, Ethernet connection (if applicable), and connection to AC power.
2. Make sure that your Mac is on a hard, flat, stable surface with good ventilation.
3. Shut down your Mac.
4. Turn on your Mac, then immediately press and hold the D key on your keyboard. Keep holding until you see a screen asking you to choose your language. When Apple Diagnostics knows your language, it displays a progress bar indicating that it's checking your Mac:
   
5. Checking your Mac takes 2 or 3 minutes. If any issues are found, Apple Diagnostics suggests solutions and provides reference codes. Note the reference codes before continuing.
   
6. Choose from these options:
   • To repeat the test, click ”Run the test again” or press Command (⌘)-R.
   • For more information, including details about your service and support options, click ”Get started” or press Command-G.
   • To restart your Mac, click Restart or press R.
   • To shut down, click Shut Down or press S.

If you choose to get more information, your Mac starts up from macOS Recovery and displays a web page asking you to choose your country or region. Click ”Agree to send” to send your serial number and reference codes to Apple. Then follow the onscreen service and support instructions. When you're done, you can choose Restart or Shut Down from the Apple menu.

This step requires an Internet connection. If you're not connected to the Internet, you'll see a page describing how to get connected.

Learn more

Check Hard Drive Health Windows 10

If holding down the D key at startup doesn't start Apple Diagnostics:

• If you're using a firmware password, turn it off. You can turn it on again after using Apple Diagnostics.
• Hold down Option-D at startup to attempt to start Apple Diagnostics over the Internet.