The SSD containing my main Windows installation is being reported as near the end of its expected life by the manufacturer's storage utility. The health information shows about 7% remaining life, and I also checked the drive with a SMART monitoring tool. Should I replace it immediately, or could it continue working for quite a while? Is there any reliable way to estimate how long it has left? I have a spare 512 GB drive available, but I'm also considering buying a larger replacement.
4 Answers
There’s no dependable countdown for an SSD. It might keep running for years, or the controller could fail tomorrow. The health percentage is a warning that replacement planning is worthwhile, not a guaranteed failure date. Make sure anything important is backed up before doing anything else.
If your operating system is the only important thing on that drive, move Windows to the spare 512 GB SSD now and keep the older drive for games or other replaceable files. If it dies later, you can reinstall those without losing valuable data.
I’d replace it while it’s still working, especially if it contains important files. A dead drive can make recovery extremely expensive, and even a good backup is easier to restore when the system drive hasn’t failed unexpectedly.
The remaining-life estimate should be treated as an indicator rather than an exact measurement. SSDs have reserved NAND capacity to replace worn-out cells, and sometimes the controller fails before the flash memory reaches its theoretical write limit. Either way, the practical advice is the same: keep backups and migrate important data before the drive becomes unreliable.
That’s what I’m leaning toward: move Windows to another drive, then use the older SSD for games until it finally gives out.