Why Is My HP ENVY 360 Reporting an Imminent SSD Failure?

A SMART utility such as CrystalDiskInfo or Samsung Magician can show the attribute that triggered the warning. Look for entries related to reallocated blocks, remaining life, wear leveling, uncorrectable errors, or spare-block availability. Those details can confirm whether the issue is wear or another hardware fault.

Since the drive has already been cloned successfully and removed, there is little reason to put it back into service. Treat the warning as genuine rather than assuming that the lack of CHKDSK errors means the SSD is healthy.

Flash memory has a finite number of write cycles. SSDs compensate by spreading writes around, retiring worn-out cells, and using reserved blocks as replacements. Once the reserve is nearly depleted, SMART can issue a predictive failure warning even though the drive still works normally.

The exact trigger depends on the model, but the practical advice is the same: back up the data and retire the drive. A larger SSD can generally tolerate more total writes because it has more flash and spare capacity, especially in a heavily written system.

That warning comes from the SSD's own internal SMART monitoring, not from the filesystem. The drive firmware tracks things such as failed or weak flash cells, read and write errors, wear levels, and the number of spare blocks still available. CHKDSK only checks the filesystem and asks the drive to read or write data, so it can report everything as fine even when the drive's hardware is already degrading.

SSD lifespan is based mostly on write activity rather than simply calendar age, although an older drive is more likely to have accumulated wear. Since the warning is predictive, the safest response is to replace the drive and keep using the clone rather than trusting the old M.2.