My Windows SSD Is Nearing the End of Its Rated Life—Should I Replace It Now?

There’s no dependable countdown for an SSD. The remaining-life figure is an estimate based mostly on write endurance, not a promise that the drive will fail at a specific point. It might keep running for years, or the controller could fail tomorrow. Since it’s already reporting only around 7% remaining, treat that as a warning and make sure anything important is backed up immediately.

The health percentage shouldn’t be interpreted as an exact expiration date. SSDs reserve some NAND capacity to replace worn-out cells, and many failures are caused by the controller or electronics rather than the flash memory reaching a precise limit. Even so, a low health reading is a good reason to replace the drive now, especially if it holds the operating system and important data.

I’d replace it while it’s still working rather than waiting for a failure. Move Windows to the spare 512GB drive if necessary, then decide later whether you want to buy a larger one. A failing system drive is mostly an inconvenience if your data is stored elsewhere, but it can become very expensive and painful if it contains the only copies of important files.

If you keep the old SSD, use it only for replaceable files such as games. With a separate drive for personal files and backups, losing the operating-system drive just means reinstalling Windows or restoring an image. Don’t rely on the old SSD for photos, documents, or anything you can’t replace.