Many of the users are not sure what type of storage unit they have on their PC. If you ask someone with minimal knowledge they might be able to explain that she has an SSD, but will not be able to specify if said SSD is of type PCIE NVMe or SATAlet alone what standard it uses.
For more advanced users this may not be a problem, but I have come across more than one case where I assumed the person in front of me was fully aware of the type of storage drive they had on their PC, and In the end I ended up realizing that it was not like that, which has made me realize that even certain users with enough knowledge also have doubts in this regard.
For everything that I have just explained to you, I have decided to give shape to this practical, where we are going to discover how we can know what type of storage unit we have installed in our computer, and what technology does it use. This is important because, as some of our readers may already know, having a PCIE SSD is not the same as having a SATA SSD, and having a 7,200 RPM HDD is not the same as having a 5,400 RPM HDD.
How to know everything about my storage unit
The simplest, fastest and most effective way is to download Crystal Disk Info, a totally free application that will allow us to individually see all the storage units that we have installed, their specifications, the technology on which they are based and also the state in which they are. To download it we just have to follow this link.
Once we have it installed, we click on it and what we see in the image will appear. It’s very easy to understand though. I have left you a description with the most important keys of each image so that you have it clearer. With this application we can identify what type of storage unit we have, but we will not only know if it is an HDD or an SSD, we will also be able to see what speed of rotation it has, if it is an HDD, what standard it uses, how much use it carries behind it, both by hours on and by gigabytes written, and the state in which it is.
Regarding the state of the unit, keep in mind that any storage unit degrades over time, and also with write cycles, so eIt is normal for an SSD that is a few years old to be below 100%. In the end, this is an indicator that should serve as a reference, but it is not an absolute value in terms of reliability, so it is always advisable to keep our backup copies safe.
If you want to check what performance your quiet storage unit is capable of offering, it’s very easy. In the same link that we leave you to get CrystalDisk Info you can find the tool Crystal Disk Markwith which you can do a performance analysis of the unit you want by simply pressing the «All» button.
What you see in the attached image is an example of a performance test carried out with this tool. HDDs will achieve the lowest results, and PCIE Gen4 x4 SSDs will achieve the highest scores as they are the fastest today. The difference between the two can be very large in raw values, although in practice even the slowest SSD is able to offer a huge improvement over any HDDso keep that in mind if you are thinking of buying one.
