Overview of Disk Health

Disk Health represents the status of the disk. A healthy drive is with faster read and write speed and better performance. However, we will inevitably encounter drive failures. Hard disk failures are generally divided into two types: predictable and unpredictable. The latter happens occasionally, and there is no way to prevent it, such as sudden chip failure, mechanical shock, etc. For predictable situations, if you can measure several important safety parameters of the hard disk and evaluate their conditions through disk monitoring technology, then there will be at least enough time for users to transfer important data to other storage devices before failure occurs.
Modern hardware drives generally support S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology), which can monitor the health of the entire hard drive and will issue a warning when the hard drive is about to fail.
AOMEI Partition Assistant checks the health status of the disk by obtaining the S.M.A.R.T. information of the disk. When the disk health status is poor, the user will be prompted and the disk data can be backed up at this time.

How to Check Disk Health with Partition Assistant

Prerequisites for Checking Disk Health

• Download and install AOMEI Partition Assistant on a Windows computer.
• Connect the disk you would like to check health to the computer.

Steps to Check Disk Health

1: Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Once the program is successfully launched, it will automatically obtain S.M.A.R.T. information on all hard disks in the background. When it detects that the disk health status of one hard drive is poor, a red exclamation mark will be displayed on the disk icon.

You can click one hard drive and choose Properties-->S.M.A.R.T Health to see detailed S.M.A.R.T information of this disk.

2. There are 3 states of hard disk health.
State one: Good
The disk is in good condition and can be used with confidence.

State two: Caution
Except for the temperature, one or more attributes are close to the threshold. The disk still can be used normally, but it is recommended to use AOMEI Backupper to backup the disk regularly.

State three: Bad
Except for temperature, one or more attributes are equal to or less than the threshold. The disk may be damaged soon and cause data loss. It is recommended to use AOMEI Backupper to clone this disk and replace it with a new one.

You can click "Details" to see specific S.M.A.R.T. values, red text indicates that the value of the item is equal to or exceeds the threshold.

If the disk is not S.M.A.R.T. enabled or is a virtual disk, then the disk health status cannot be obtained. You will see prompt information like this:

In this case, it is recommended to Check Bad Sector by AOMEI Partition Assistant to see if there is a problem with the disk.

Conclusion

Followed by the above steps, you can check the disk health state. This feature is mainly used to monitor your disk health status. In some cases, the drive status might be bad. Therefore, it is time for you to migrate your important data to a safer location to avoid data loss. Or, you might need to exchange a new healthy disk. It is really a very practical tool.

 

Notes:

• The status just displays the result of S.M.A.R.T after checking some attributes of the disk. If a drive is detected as Bad, it does not mean the drive itself is corrupted.
• In some cases, you might get different results if you check with different programs because these tools may detect different attributes of the drive.

 

FAQs:

Q: Why does it fail to acquire the disk health status in AOMEI Partition Assistant?

A: The possible issue is that the disk does not support S.M.A.R.T technology. Generally, virtual disks, USB flash drives, SD cards, and so on do not support S.M.A.R.T.

Q: Why the health status in AOMEI Partition Assistant is not the same as the one we use with other programs?

A: It is normal because AOMEI Partition Assistant only uses the S.M.A.R.T analysis and report technology and only checks some attributes and parameters of the disk. Other programs might use other mechanisms and parameters.

Q: Can I still use a drive with a "Bad" health condition displayed in Partition Assistant?

A: Yes, you can still use it. But the drive might be damaged soon and might cause data loss. It is recommended to make a backup of data on it in advance for data security.