New Windows 10 feature alerts users if their SSD is about to fail

[midian182]

In brief: Do you worry that your NVMe SSD might suddenly up and die on you? In the latest Insider Preview Build of Windows 10, the OS will alert you of your drive's health, including its estimated remaining life.

Windows10 Build 20266, which is now available to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel, introduces storage health monitoring designed to inform users of any abnormalities in their NVMe solid-state drive, giving them time to back up their data before it's potentially lost forever.

In addition to detecting issues, the feature will show the drive's estimated remaining life, available space, and its temperature.

Notifications will arrive when spare storage capacity is low, the SSD's reliability is degraded due to "significant media-related errors or an internal error to the NVM subsystem," or if the drive is set to read-only.

"It is strongly recommended that users immediately back up their data after receiving a notification," writes Microsoft.

Users who receive an alert can click on the message or go to Start > Settings > System > Storage > Manage disks and volumes > Properties to get more details about the drive and the detected issues.

The feature only works with NVMe SSDs right now. Microsoft doesn't say whether it will eventually cover SATA SSDs or hard disk drives.

Elsewhere in Build 20266, a new settings page has been added to the Your Phone app, allowing users to add, remove, and switch devices easily within the application. There's also a change that will turn off theme syncing, along with other bug fixes and improvements.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/86947-new-windows-10-feature-alerts-users-if-their.html

 

[Aus spot]

Good in concept, but remaining life 10%. What dies that mean? How is that going to help people .

 

[kimo1]

Good in concept, but remaining life 10%. What dies that mean? How is that going to help people .

It means how many functioning transistors have remained. Yeah, it could tell how fast the % drops too.

Currently using CrystalDiskInfo to monitor my Samsung 850 PRO SATA SSD. 799 power on hours and lost only 2% this far. It loses 1% per year as I understand. Due to longevity of the disk, Samsung even crippled its official Magician tool to have no features to increase disk longevity. So I'm using the last version of the tool that isn't trash.
But ofc, no way I believe my SSD will live over 60 years. I bet some silicon will degrade to death long before that.

 

[Achaios]

It means how many functioning transistors have remained. Yeah, it could tell how fast the % drops too.

Currently using CrystalDiskInfo to monitor my Samsung 850 PRO SATA SSD. 799 power on hours and lost only 2% this far. It loses 1% per year as I understand. Due to longevity of the disk, Samsung even crippled its official Magician tool to have no features to increase disk longevity. So I'm using the last version of the tool that isn't trash.
But ofc, no way I believe my SSD will live over 60 years. I bet some silicon will degrade to death long before that.

Wouldn't worry abt that if I were you.

Someone did the math at Overclock.net but suffice to say that my Samsung 840 Evo has logged 30000 hours of operation since 2012-2013 so far, 19TB writes and it's still at 97% life remaining, feature "Wear Leveling Count".

I'd probably die first before I see the drive fail.

 

[lipe123]

Good in concept, but remaining life 10%. What dies that mean? How is that going to help people .

If red letters say "this is about to die, replace it now" doesn't help you then nothing will.

It's really not that hard, its a standard feature of SSD drives to display life remaining as a %.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This is a new feature?

I mean it, our optiplex workstations had SMART warnings 20 years ago. Windows has been able to warn of hard drive failures for a long time. Did it not do this with ssds.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Wouldn't worry abt that if I were you.

Someone did the math at Overclock.net but suffice to say that my Samsung 840 Evo has logged 30000 hours of operation since 2012-2013 so far, 19TB writes and it's still at 97% life remaining, feature "Wear Leveling Count".

I'd probably die first before I see the drive fail.

On my new PC I have a 1TB samsung NVME -which I hammer with video encoding.

But the PC I am on now has the Samsung 240gb 840 pro - which must be real old now - I have hammered this one too . They are just tools to be hammered - many of us read the report of some guy testing SSD drives to death . The only rule I have is do not let in get too little space = even then have not seen slow down. It's funny I could swap out drive as have 500Gb and 1tb ones lying around .
My phone is a tool - same pocket as bunches of keys - bolts & nuts etc - I do change the glass protector once a year . Look at old photo journalists their Nikons/Canons etc were all dinged from running around fast - a couple of bodies hang at different lengths .
Why have a fast drive just for quick boot times and game loading - and use slower drives for work space F.That

 

[Bullwinkle M]

That's not very useful for everyday use

Wouldn't you rather have a new feature alerting users if Windows 10 is about to fail in spectacular fashion?

 

[lazer]

Micro$lop should come up with something that will tell you when your computer will flop do to crappy upgrades.
Actually they did such a thing but it kept flopping.....

 

[loki1944]

That's not very useful for everyday use

Wouldn't you rather have a new feature alerting users if Windows 10 is about to fail in spectacular fashion?

That's part of the russian roulette Windows 10 updates.

 

[kissx]

I will let Samsung app tell me . Using it since 2015.