Is my SSD or hard drive failing?
A drive rarely dies overnight. It usually gives signs for days or weeks. Spotting them in time is the difference between a calm backup and a data recovery bill.
Signs you can notice
- Files that take ages to open, or copies that freeze halfway.
- Clicking or grinding noises from a hard drive.
- Error messages about a file or folder that cannot be read.
- The computer freezes for a few seconds, then starts again.
- Windows runs a disk check at every startup.
What SMART says
SMART is the health log kept by the drive itself. Three values matter on a hard drive: reallocated sectors, pending sectors and uncorrectable sectors. All three should be zero. If one of them rises from one week to the next, the drive is wearing out.
An SSD wears differently: it has a limited number of writes. The Percentage Used (or wear leveling) value tells you how much of that budget is gone. An SSD at 90 % still works but should be replaced soon.
What to do now
Copy your important files to another drive first, before any repair attempt. Do not run long disk repair tools on a drive that makes noise: each hour of use can make it worse. Once your files are safe, replace the drive.
The tool
KDL Diag reads the SMART log and SSD wear for you and says in plain words if the drive needs attention. KDL Backup Care then copies your files and checks each one.