Microsoft is aiming to avoid a potential disaster with a new drive health monitoring feature being added to Windows 10.
Solid-state drives (SSDs) may be a lot faster than mechanical hard drives, but they are not immune to failure, and can do so silently and without warning.
In an announcement for the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 20226, Brandon LeBlanc, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, said the new drive health monitoring feature “is designed to detect hardware abnormalities for NVMe SSDs.”
When such an abnormality is detected, a notification will appear on the desktop stating, “A storage device may be at risk of failure and requires your attention.”
Seeing this new notification appear means you really need to back up all your data immediately.
There is a clickable link that comes with the notification to load up Windows 10’s drive management and backup options, which also provides more detail on why Windows sent the notification.
However, it is possible to check the health of a drive at any time in Build 20226.
Simply navigate to Settings > System > Storage > Manage disks and volumes > Properties, where the Drive Health information is located.
There you will see the estimated remaining life of the drive, its current temperature, and any warnings in red text. There is also the option to “Back up now” for convenience.