Windows 10 now supports monitoring NVMe SSDs. With the new storage device monitoring feature’s help, you can check your NVMe storage device health and temperature. Additionally, the feature also alerts you when PC’s NVMe SSD is on the verge of failure.
Windows 10 shows “A storage device may be at risk of failure and requires your attention” notification when the estimated remaining life of NVMe SSD reaches 10%. For those of you wondering how Windows 10 calculates the SSD’s health, it compares the total Terabytes written on the SSD or write cycles as of now to the Terabytes or write total cycles predicted by the SSD manufacturer.
When you get the above notification, we suggest you navigate to Windows 10 Settings > System > Storage > Manage disks and volumes > and then click Properties to view the estimated remaining life of the storage device. The page might display a “Reliability is degraded” message.
IMPORTANT: Windows 10 does not support monitoring traditional SATA SSDs and Hard Disk Drives (HDDs). So, do not expect an alert for your SSDs and HDDs. Moreover, we encourage you to back up your data right away and not wait for the alert to pop up!
NOTE: This feature is currently available only for Windows Insiders.
What to do when you get the notification?
All NVMe SSD manufacturers provide their tool to change SSD settings and monitor health. We strongly recommend installing the manufacturer provided NVMe SSD monitoring application and double-check the health of the NVMe storage device. For instance, install the Samsung Magician software if you have an NVMe SSD manufactured by Samsung to check its health.
If the official application also predicts that the storage device is not in good shape, it is high time you back up all critical data to an external drive or another internal drive if you have one.
Additionally, we suggest you replace the storage device with a new one as soon as possible to avoid hassles in the future.
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