Last Updated on April 19, 2026
These days, almost everyone is running an SSD (Solid State) drive in their computer. Most laptops now come with SSD drives exclusively. You only really see older spinning disks as secondary data drives in new computers since SSD drives such as NVMe drives are so much faster and tend to be used to run Windows and other operating systems.
SSD drives do not have any moving parts and when they start to fail, you will not hear the typical spinning disk clicking sound that indicates a pending issue. This is where SSD monitoring software comes into play to help you manage the health of your hard drives. In this article, we will be showing you how to check your SSD power on count, power on hours plus other health stats with CrystalDiskInfo.
Understanding S.M.A.R.T. Data
S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology. It is a monitoring system included in nearly every modern hard drive and SSD. While Windows doesn’t give you an easy way to read this data natively, CrystalDiskInfo “decodes” these attributes into a user-friendly dashboard.
Monitoring this data is the best way to predict a drive failure before it happens. Unlike older mechanical drives that might “click” or “grind” when they fail, an SSD will often simply stop working without warning. Checking these stats once a month is a great habit for data safety.
CrystalDiskInfo is a free and lightweight drive‑monitoring tool that displays detailed health information for SSDs, NVMe drives, and even traditional hard disks. It reads SMART data to show stats like temperature, power‑on hours, power‑on count, drive health status, error rates, and firmware details.
There is an installable and standalone version of CrystalDiskInfo and many people prefer the standalone version since there is nothing to install on your computer. Once you download and extract the zip file, you can simply run the DiskInfo64.exe file to open the app.
Once CrystalDiskInfo is running, you will see a lot of information about your drive. If you have more than one hard drive in your system, you will be able to toggle between them by clicking on the one you want to view at the top of the app or by using the back and forward arrow buttons.
You will also see the overall health status, which is an indication of how much life the drive has left. Plus, it will show the overall temperature of the drive below that so you can see if it’s running hot for example.
What Do the Health Status Colors Mean?
CrystalDiskInfo uses a simple color-coded system to tell you the condition of your drive:
- Blue (Good): Your drive is healthy and operating within normal parameters.
- Yellow (Caution): The software has detected “reallocated sectors” or “remaining life” issues. This is a warning to back up your data immediately.
- Red (Bad): The drive is failing or has reached its end-of-life threshold. Replacement is required.
- Grey (Unknown): The software cannot communicate with the drive’s controller (common with some external USB enclosures).
CrystalDiskInfo shows detailed information about your drive such as the firmware version, serial number, interface (connection type) and what features your drive has such as S.M.A.R.T, NCQ, APM, DevSleep or TRIM for example.
On the right side of the app, you will see details about how much data was read from and written to the drive as well as how many times it was powered on and how many hours it has been running. The power on hours is not how many continuous hours it has been running but rather total hours. There are several ways to find out how long your computer has been running.
Interpreting Power On Hours and Counts
Many users wonder what a “high” number of hours is for an SSD. Most modern SSDs are rated for millions of hours of MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures). However, for a standard consumer drive, seeing 20,000 to 30,000 hours is common for a drive that is a few years old.
More important than “Hours” is the Total Host Writes. SSDs have a finite amount of data they can write before the flash memory wears out. If you see high “Power On Hours” but low “Total Host Writes,” your drive likely has many years of life remaining.
The bottom pane shows several other attributes about your hard drive such as CRC error count, grown bad blocks, program fail count, unexpected power loss count and more. Many of these metrics will not be too helpful but that will depend on your needs. You will also notice that the raw values are in hexadecimal which can be converted to decimal or you can change the display type in the app settings.
CrystalDiskInfo has some additional settings you can configure, and most can be found under the Function menu and Advanced Feature sub menu.
For example, if you want to change the temperature display from Celsius to Fahrenheit you can do that from here. You can also do things such as setting up email or audio alerts for things such as your drive getting too hot.
CrystalDiskInfo & SSD Health FAQ
Can CrystalDiskInfo fix a “Caution” status?
No. The software is a monitor, not a repair tool. If a drive is marked as “Caution,” the physical hardware is wearing out, and no software can “fix” those sectors.
Why is my SSD temperature showing in Red?
NVMe SSDs tend to run hotter than older SATA SSDs. If your drive is consistently above 60°C–70°C, you may want to look into adding a heatsink or improving your case’s airflow to prevent thermal throttling.
Does this work with external USB drives?
Yes, but it depends on the USB controller inside the external case. Most modern external SSDs and HDDs will pass their SMART data through to CrystalDiskInfo without issue.
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