Fragmentation occurs during regular use of hard drive as you read/write/delete data to and from the hard disk. You can follow the optimization tips mentioned below to ensure the hard disk health.ĭisk fragmentation causes slow I/O speeds. If the speed is lower than the minimum read/write capability of the drive-mentioned on the product website, consider optimizing the drive to keep it in good health.Ī lower I/O speed indicates an underlying drive issue that must be resolved quickly.

It’s a disk-benchmarking tool that tests the read and writes speeds of a disk such as hard drive, SSD, SD card, or USB thumb drive, etc.įigure 7: Hard Disk Speed Test to check the hard disk health

You may run a few tests on the drive to check and test the performance of the drive by using a tool such as CrystalDiskMark. To clone, you need a blank hard drive with size equal to or greater than the affected drive. Use a drive-cloning software such Drive Monitor, mentioned earlier. If you detect any anomaly, immediately clone your drive.Also, check if the drive stops rotating intermittently. While the drive is connected to the system, listen intently for any grinding, whirring, or screeching sound.You can inspect the internal or external drive physically, and here’s how: For instance, actuator arm grinding against the platter or clicking noise indicate physical problem with the drive. If data on your external or internal drive is getting corrupt often, there might be a mechanical issue with the drive. However, no data is shown, but you see a message ‘ Status ok’ if the drive is working fine.įigure 6: CrystalDiskInfo tool to check hard disk health status Type wmic and then diskdrive get status (see screenshot below). To access and check SMART disk data, you can use the command prompt. The SMART data can reveal a lot about hard disk health including warning signs for imminent drive failure or error. Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting (SMART) is a disk monitoring system that comes embedded on hard drives, solid-state drives, and eMMC storage media. Smart Ways to Check and Ensure Hard Disk Health

Further, we have discussed steps to recover data from failed hard drives coz you never know when things may go wrong. And how you can stay more productive by scheduling the disk checking and optimization tasks with the help of AI (machine learning) based calendar app. In this guide, we will take you through the most effective methods to keep a thorough check on the hard disk health. Data is lost in all such cases, unless you take proper care of the hard drive -whether installed in your laptop, PC, or server.

Crystaldiskinfo check both drives