The first SSDs to hit the market didn’t offer the same durability as traditional hard drives, so they struggled to become a real alternative. Over the years, technology has evolved and currently this type of storage has nothing to do with traditional hard drives and, like these, they wear out with continued use over time.
If we want to know the performance of our SSD to check both its condition and the speed at which it works, on the Internet we can find a large number of applications to know this information and know, at any time, if it is It’s time to think about renewing our SSD or if we can extend its useful life a little further.
It is not advisable to extend its life beyond what is recommended because, unlike hard drives, when an SSD stops working it is virtually impossible to recover the information.
How to measure SSD performance
If you want to know what are the best tools to know the status of an SSD, we show you the best free options below.
- Brand CrystalDisk. We start this compilation of the best free programs to measure the performance of an SSD with CrystalDiskMark, a free application translated into Spanish that allows us to know the reading and writing speed of any SSD unit connected to the computer . Its operation is very simple since you just have to click on the All button to carry out the reading and writing tests to propose their results. We can modify the size of the file that will be used, even if the default configuration is more than sufficient. To download CrystalDiskMark this link.
- HD setting. When we talk about HD Tune we are talking about an application that offers us all the information we may need about our SSD, both the reading and writing speed as well as the number of hours of use and duration of useful life remaining. Additionally, it also allows us to analyze unit errors to resolve them, delete files securely and much more. The free version of HD Tune is more than enough to know the performance of our PC and we can download it from its website.
- SSD lifespan. If our computer knowledge is low or practically non-existent and we barely understand what the information collected by the applications we presented above means, the application we are looking for in SSD Life. SSD Life is a simple application that allows us to know both the health of our SSD and its expected lifespan based on the use we give it. The free version of this application is more than enough to know this information and we can download it from its website.
- Anvil Storage Reference. An interesting option that we also have to check the reading speed of our SSD unit is Avil’s Storage Utilities, an application that also allows us to analyze the operation of mechanical hard drives. The information it shows is practically the same as any other, but it represents it in a much simpler way and, in addition, it shows us information about the life of the unit in operation of its performances. The app hasn’t been updated in a few years, however, that doesn’t stop it from running smoothly on Windows 11. This is a portable app, so there’s no need to install it and we can download it from here. .
- Hard Drive Sentinel. If we are looking for a tutor to know the status and performance of our SSD, Hard Disk Sentinel is one of the most complete on the market, a completely free application, updated periodically and, in addition to being available on Windows, We can also use it on Linux. This application analyzes the status of our SSD to show its health level. We can keep it open in the background so that it analyzes the operation of our SSD unit in real time and repairs any problems it may detect. Hard Disk Sentinel download is available here.