topic Re: Solid State Drive Question in Monitors and Memory

Solid State Drive Question

OKCarl — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 13:16:57 GMT

My solid state C drive is a Samsung PM9A1 NVMe with 1024 GB storage. For the last two years Crystal Disc Info has been reporting (every morning when I boot) 96% health, good. This morning the report read 95% good. Should I be afraid? When should I start worrying?

Re: Solid State Drive Question

userwS0mGfglme — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 13:28:29 GMT

No, not really. It is a normal derogation of storage reporting data. If the report continues to drop every time you boot up, then you should back it up and think about replacing it before you can't access it.

Re: Solid State Drive Question

OKCarl — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 18:25:07 GMT

O.K. Let's go a bit deeper. When do you suggest I start worrying? At 90%? At 85%? Second Question. My D drive (spinning metal) contains files and folders filled with data. I know how to back up a D (data) drive. My C drive contains (I Hope) my Windows 11 Pro operating system and all my programs. How do you back up a C drive (Solid State).

Re: Solid State Drive Question

SPACEMSH — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 20:10:40 GMT

@OKCarl The best way to back up a System drive, IMO, is to buy another SSD (NVMe or SATA) of the same capacity (but can be simple and cheap, would be fine for a back-up), and clone the entire drive to it. If you get a Samsung SSD, the Samsung Magician software will allow you to clone the C drive to it. It's very easy. Then you just take out that back up drive and store it somewhere safe. This way if your main System drive ever fails, you can just replace it with a back-up drive and boot right back in to continue using your computer, and then you can get whatever you'd like for your system drive, and clone from your back-up to it to use permanently. That's how I back up my C drive.

When it's time to worry, I honestly don't know. I never had an SSD fail on me, I usually end up replacing them with something faster or with higher capacity, and still use all my old SSDs as secondary drives or in my home server.