Unlike a MacBook battery, which shows a cycle count and a clear "Service Recommended" flag, an SSD gives you no friendly health percentage. macOS hides most of the detail. But your drive does keep internal wear and error data, and there are a few reliable ways to read it. This guide shows you exactly how to check the health of the SSD in your MacBook, how to read the warning signs, and how to decide what to do next.
The short version
- Fastest check: Open Disk Utility, select your physical drive, and look at S.M.A.R.T. Status. "Verified" is good; "Failing" means back up right now.
- Apple Silicon reality: On M1/M2/M3 Macs the SSD is soldered to the logic board, and SMART reporting is limited. The checks below still catch a genuinely failing drive.
- Wear matters most on older Intel Macs and on any Mac with a small drive that has been full for years (constant writes wear an SSD faster).
- If the checks come back clean but the drive is small or the Mac is old, the smarter move is often to trade it toward a newer Mac rather than pay for a board-level repair.
1. Check S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility (30 seconds)
S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is the drive's own built-in health flag. This is the single most useful check.
- Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities, or press Command-Space and type "Disk Utility").
- In the menu bar choose View > Show All Devices. This is important — you want the physical drive at the top of the list (e.g. "APPLE SSD..."), not the "Macintosh HD" volume underneath it.
- Select the physical drive. Look at the bottom of the window for S.M.A.R.T. Status.
How to read it:
- Verified — the drive reports itself healthy. Good.
- Not Supported — common on some Apple Silicon and USB drives. It does not mean the drive is bad; it means macOS is not exposing SMART here. Use the other checks below.
- Failing — the drive has crossed an internal error threshold. Stop and back up immediately (see the recovery section), then plan to replace or sell the Mac. A "Failing" SSD can die completely with little warning.
2. Read the deeper detail in System Information
System Information shows the drive model, capacity, and (on some models) more SMART detail than Disk Utility.
- Hold Option and click the Apple menu, then choose System Information.
- In the sidebar, under Hardware, click NVMExpress (Apple Silicon and recent Intel) or SATA/SATA Express (older Intel).
- Select your drive. Note the Model and Capacity. If a S.M.A.R.T. status line appears here, it should match Disk Utility.
This is also how you confirm the true size of the drive — useful if you are deciding between clearing space and upgrading. If your drive is simply full rather than unhealthy, our free up MacBook storage guide is the right fix.
3. Check drive errors and wear from the Terminal
For a closer look, macOS ships a couple of command-line tools. You do not need to install anything.
SMART summary (Intel Macs, and any external SATA/NVMe drive): open Terminal and run:
diskutil info disk0
Look for the SMART Status line in the output. disk0 is almost always the internal drive; if you are checking an external one, run diskutil list first to find its identifier.
Filesystem integrity check: a drive that keeps corrupting its filesystem is often a sign of failing hardware. You can verify (read-only, safe) with:
diskutil verifyVolume /
If that reports problems, run a full repair using our step-by-step Disk Utility First Aid guide. If First Aid keeps finding the same corruption after repairs, treat that as a failing-drive warning, not a software glitch.
A note on smartctl: power users sometimes install smartctl (from the open-source smartmontools package via Homebrew) to read raw wear attributes like Percentage Used and Data Units Written. It works well on Intel Macs and external drives. On Apple Silicon internal SSDs it is largely blocked — Apple does not expose the raw NVMe health log — so do not be surprised if it returns little. For most people the Disk Utility SMART flag plus the warning signs below are enough.
Understanding SSD wear and TBW
SSDs do not last forever. Each memory cell can only be written a finite number of times, and manufacturers rate a drive by TBW — Terabytes Written — the total data you can write over its life. The good news: modern Mac SSDs are rated for hundreds of TBW, and normal use writes only a few TB per year. A typical MacBook SSD will outlast the rest of the machine.
What actually shortens SSD life on a Mac:
- A chronically full drive. When free space is very low, macOS writes and rewrites the same cells constantly (swap, caches, snapshots). Keeping 10–15% free is the single best thing you can do for SSD longevity.
- Heavy video/photo work on a small drive. Scratch files and cache churn add up fast.
- Years of use on an older Intel SSD. These have lower TBW ratings than Apple Silicon drives.
If you are always fighting for space on a 256GB drive, that is usually a sizing problem, not a health problem — our 256GB vs 512GB storage guide covers when a bigger drive is worth it.
Warning signs of a failing SSD
Numbers aside, these symptoms mean the drive may be on its way out. Any one of them is a reason to back up today:
- A flashing folder with a question mark at startup (the Mac cannot find a bootable drive).
- Files or folders that disappear, corrupt, or refuse to open.
- Kernel panics (spontaneous restarts with a "Your computer restarted because of a problem" message).
- The Mac freezes or beachballs during ordinary saves and copies.
- Disk Utility First Aid keeps finding the same corruption after repairs.
- S.M.A.R.T. status reads Failing.
If your drive is failing: back up first, in this order
A failing SSD can go from "occasional glitch" to "won't boot" without warning. Rescue your data before anything else:
- Copy your most important files right now — manually drag them to an external drive or a cloud folder. Do not wait for a full backup.
- Then start a Time Machine backup to an external drive for everything else.
- If the Mac will not boot, try Recovery mode and copy files off from there, or connect the Mac to another Mac to pull data across.
Repair, keep, or sell? How to decide
On modern MacBooks the SSD is soldered to the logic board, so a "drive replacement" is really a logic-board replacement — Apple's out-of-warranty price is often several hundred dollars, sometimes more than the Mac is worth. Weigh it like this:
- Newer Mac still under warranty or AppleCare: get it serviced — the repair is covered.
- Older Mac, out of warranty, board-swap quote near the value of the machine: replacing the Mac is usually the better math. A verified-working refurbished MacBook Air starts around $450, and you can browse discounted models on our Apple clearance page.
- Drive already dead? The Mac is not worthless. We buy Macs with failed drives — see sell a MacBook with a failed SSD for what the surviving parts are worth and how the trade toward a working Mac works.
Related guides
- How to run Disk Utility First Aid on a Mac
- MacBook storage full? Free up space fast
- 256GB vs 512GB: how much MacBook storage you need
- Sell a MacBook with a failed SSD
Frequently Asked Questions
Does macOS show SSD health like it shows battery health?
No. There is no single "SSD health: 92%" screen the way there is for the battery. The closest built-in indicator is the S.M.A.R.T. status in Disk Utility (Verified / Not Supported / Failing). Deeper wear data exists but macOS mostly does not expose it, especially on Apple Silicon.
What is a good S.M.A.R.T. status?
"Verified" is what you want. "Not Supported" is neutral — it just means macOS is not reporting SMART for that drive, common on Apple Silicon and USB drives. "Failing" is the one to act on: back up immediately and plan to replace or sell the Mac.
How long does a MacBook SSD last?
For most people, longer than the rest of the Mac. Modern Apple SSDs are rated for hundreds of terabytes written, and normal use writes only a few TB per year. The main thing that shortens SSD life is running the drive nearly full for years, which forces constant rewrites. Keeping 10–15% free helps a lot.
Can I check SSD health with smartctl on an Apple Silicon Mac?
Mostly no. smartctl (from smartmontools) reads raw wear attributes on Intel Macs and external drives, but Apple does not expose the raw NVMe health log on M1/M2/M3 internal SSDs, so it returns little. Rely on the Disk Utility SMART flag and the warning-sign checklist instead.
My Mac feels slow — is the SSD failing?
Usually not. A slow Mac is far more often a full drive, too little RAM, or too many background apps than a dying SSD. A failing SSD tends to show corruption, disappearing files, kernel panics, or a flashing question-mark folder — not just general slowness. If it is only slow, try freeing space first.
Do you buy MacBooks with drive or storage problems?
Yes. Even a Mac with a completely dead SSD has value in its screen, chassis, and other parts, and you can put that toward a working replacement. See our guide on selling a MacBook with a failed SSD for the details.