How to check how many hours your SSD has been used

Power-on hours are recorded by the SSD itself, and Pulse by Zaweba shows them for NVMe drives in its Drive health group on the Temperatures page. Open Pulse, press Ctrl+2, and each drive's entry lists the hours it has been running, together with its life used, spare capacity, media errors and temperature. No administrator rights are needed for NVMe drives.

Hours are a handy figure for a few reasons: judging a second-hand drive, checking a laptop you've just bought, or working out how hard a drive in a busy PC has been used.

Finding the figure

Install and open Pulse by Zaweba. Go to the Temperatures page from the View menu or with Ctrl+2. Below the temperature tiles is the Drive health group, which reads each drive's SMART data. For an NVMe drive you'll see power-on hours alongside the other health figures.

The number is a total of hours with power on, not years of age. A drive in a PC that is left on all day collects about 24 hours a day, while a laptop used for an evening might add two or three. Divide by your usual daily use if you want a rough idea of how long it has been in service.

Drives that need the helper

SATA SSDs and drives in USB enclosures report their health in a different way, and Windows only lets administrators read it. Pulse reads these through an optional sensor helper. Turn on Settings > Sensor readings, or use the button on the Temperatures page. Windows asks for approval, and a small helper starts that only reads sensors and closes when Pulse does. Pulse itself carries on running as a normal user.

Hours on their own don't say much

A drive with many hours can be in perfect health, and a young one can be in trouble. Read the hours next to the other figures. Percentage of rated life used tells you how much of the drive's designed write endurance has gone, which is the better guide to wear on an SSD. Available spare against its threshold shows how much reserve the drive has left for replacing worn areas. Media errors should be zero. Critical warning flags should be clear.

Put together, these tell a fuller story. Lots of hours and little life used means a drive that has been switched on a lot but not written to heavily, which is common in office PCs. Few hours and a lot of life used means heavy writing, such as video work or a drive used for downloads.

Checking a second-hand drive

If you've bought a used PC or a drive on its own, check it soon after you get it. The hours give you an honest idea of its past, whatever the listing said. Make a note of the life used and spare figures too, so you have something to compare against later.

Keeping an eye on it

Pulse by Zaweba can watch the drive for you from then on. The drive health alert on the Alerts page is on by default and sends a Windows notification if the drive reports a critical warning, new media errors or reallocated sectors, spare below its threshold, or 90 per cent of rated life used. That way the hours stay an interesting number rather than something you need to worry about.