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What utility to test SSD/HDD for errors?

D

daxzy

Senior member
I bought a used SSD and will be buying some new HDD's (WD Red's) and want to test these for errors. What's the best free utility for this?

I know of just CrystalDiskInfo, for pulling SMART attributes. HD-Tune seems good, but the pro version costs money.
 
Check the SSD/HDD manufacturer if they provide diagnosis utilities. Nearly all do. Intel, Seagate, WD, Samsung. Which reminds me that there are really only about 3 HDD manufacturers. The rest got swallowed up by Seagate or WD. Anyhow, sometimes their diagnosis software will work on their 'adopted child' drives.

If all else fails, try ultimate boot disk. It contains nearly all diagnosis utilities. They nearly are all command line based.

When you test, you'll want to initiate a SMART quick test. Looking at the SMART values is a guess for most generic utilities so it's even a bigger guess for users. I myself try to look at:

Total reads/writes (often SSDs only)
hours powered on (age)
power cycle (how often it's used)

As for reallocated sectors for HDDs, if you think you see too many, feel free to secure erase it, then SMART full test. This can take 5-10 hours based on capacity. That should make it reallocate any pending sectors.
 
Last edited:
On top of what razel said:

A relatively easy way to check for some errors:

1/2. Format NTFS, quick.
1/2. Save SMART values.
3. Run chkdsk /r (runs quicker than a full format on SSDs, IME)
4. Wait for a good long while, on the Reds.
5. Compare new and old SMART values.

Reallocated sectors, pending sectors, and uncorrectable errors, should not change. Worst case for a good HDD should be an increment of 1 on any of those values, except the UDMA CRC one (that one increasing means you have a controller or cable problem).

If the SSD is not a Micron/Crucial, you'd generally want the reallocated sectors to be 0; even with a Micron, you don't want it to be, say, 50. I've noticed Micron doesn't seem to care much if you see a 0 there or not, with a new drive (all HDD and SSD makers scan and remap bad locations at the factory, but most set the SMART attributes to 0).

If any SMART values are unlabeled, look them up. The manufacturer should have a paper describing them.
 
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