Windows 10: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Windows 10

How to: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Windows 10

How to See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Windows 10


You can easily check to see if the disk type for your drives are SSD or HDD in Windows 10 without having to physically look at them or use 3rd party software.

A HDD (hard disk drive) is an electro-mechanical data storage device that uses magnetic storage to store and retrieve digital information using one or more rigid rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material. The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a random-access manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order and not only sequentially. HDDs are a type of non-volatile storage, retaining stored data even when powered off.

A SSD (solid state drive), is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently. It is also sometimes called a solid-state device or a solid-state disk, although SSDs do not have physical disks. SSDs can use traditional hard disk drive (HDD) interfaces and form factors, or newer interfaces and form factors that exploit specific advantages of the flash memory in SSDs. Traditional interfaces (e.g., SATA and SAS) and standard HDD form factors allow such SSDs to be used as drop-in replacements for HDDs in computers and other devices. Newer form factors such as mSATA, M.2, U.2, and EDSFF (formerly known as Ruler SSD) and higher speed interfaces such as NVMe over PCI Express can increase performance over HDD performance. SSDs have no moving mechanical components. This distinguishes them from conventional electromechanical drives such as HDDs or floppy disks, which contain spinning disks and movable read-write heads. Compared with electromechanical drives, SSDs are typically more resistant to physical shock, run silently, and have quicker access time and lower latency. While the price of SSDs has continued to decline over time, SSDs are still more expensive per unit of storage than HDDs and are expected to remain so into the next decade.

This tutorial will show you how to see if a disk type is SSD (solid state drive) or HDD (hard disk drive) in Windows 10.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Microsoft Drive Optimizer
• Option Two: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Task Manager
• Option Three: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in PowerShell
• Option Four: See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Command Prompt

OPTION ONE [/i] See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Microsoft Drive Optimizer
1. Open Optimize Drives.

2. In the Media type column, you will see the disk type shown for each drive listed. (see screenshot below)









OPTION TWO [/i] See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Task Manager
*note This option is only available starting with Window 10 build 18898 and higher.
1. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

2. In the Performance tab, you will see the disk type (SSD or HDD) for each disk listed. (see screenshot below)









OPTION THREE [/i] See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in PowerShell
*note To see more Get-PhysicalDisk command usage options and details, see: Get-PhysicalDisk | Microsoft Docs
1. Open PowerShell.

2. Copy and paste the command below into PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow Get-PhysicalDisk | Format-Table -AutoSize
3. In the MediaType column, you will see the disk type (SSD or HDD) for each disk listed. (see screenshot below)









OPTION FOUR [/i] See if Disk Type is SSD or HDD in Command Prompt
*note To see more Get-PhysicalDisk command usage options and details, see: Get-PhysicalDisk | Microsoft Docs
1. Open a Command Prompt.

2. Copy and paste the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow PowerShell "Get-PhysicalDisk | Format-Table -AutoSize"
3. In the MediaType column, you will see the disk type (SSD or HDD) for each disk listed. (see screenshot below)





That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Check if Disk is MBR or GPT in Windows

:)

 

Windows 10 can not optimize HDD, says it is a SSD Help

Hi Steve,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

Appreciate your efforts to work on this issue.

• Does the BIOS recognizes the disk as HDD or SSD?
  

Suggest you to set the Optimize Drives Service to start automatically from the services window to check if that helps.

1. Open the run window, type ‘services.msc’ and press Enter.
   
2. Search for Optimize Drives Service and select the start-up type as automatic. Also ensure to start the service.
   

If you have set SATA controller to AHCI mode for Solid State Drive, in Device Manager it would show as SATA hard disk.

Follow these steps:

1. Click start, type “Defragment” and click “Defragment and Optimize your drives”.
   
2. On the “Defragment and Optimize your drives” window. Make sure that your SSD is categorized as an SSD.
   
3. If it’s not, then you can set it as a SSD on your bios. This way, you don’t have to exclude your SSD or disable any scheduled defragmentation.
   

Disclaimer: Modifying BIOS/ complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring
of BIOS/CMOS settings can be solved. Modifications of the settings are at your own risk.

Hope this helps.

Let us know if you got the help you needed.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator

 

Move Windows 10 from installed hdd to installed ssd

Get a disk cloning software and do the cloning job, from HDD to SSD on PC.

Change boot priority to cloned SSD in BIOS or remove HDD to test if you can boot up successfully.

Cloning method is safe but still it is good to create a backup image for your Win10 before you start.

For detailed steps with screenshots, you may need:
migrate Windows 10 to SSD without data loss.

 

Windows 10 on HDD to a new SSD

I have recently replaced the 500 GB HDD in my laptop running Windows 10 with a 480 GB SSD. The laptop was fully configured with my applications and other settings. The steps I took were as follows:

1) Shrink the C: drive so it was significantly smaller than the SSD (by at least 100 GB) using the Disk Management tools in W10.

2) Copy all the files from D: onto an external HDD.

3) Download Ubuntu Linux and burn on to a DVD.

4) Download Windows 10 from Download Windows 10 and burn this on to a DVD.

5) Close down and boot the laptop from the Ubuntu DVD from step 3 (I used a USB DVD rewriter).

6) Plug in the external HDD.

7) Open a Linux terminal and cd to the external HDD.

8) Copy the C: partition to the external HDD using a command such as:

dd bs=1024k if=/dev/sda1 of=C-drive

where sda1 is adjusted to point to the correct partition.

9) Close down and remove the external HDD.

10) Remove the HDD and replace with the SSD.

11) Perform a clean install Windows 10 from the DVD from step 4. Deleting all partitions from the SSD if it has had any created on it. When it asked for the product key, there was an option to enter it later. Make sure that the C: drive that is created is
the same size or bigger than the C: drive was on the HDD.

12) Repeat steps 5, 6 and 7 then run the command

dd bs=1024k if=C-drive of=/dev/sda4

With the clean install of W10 64bit, sda4 was the C: drive on the SSD after the installation.

13) Reboot from the SSD. The first couple of times my laptop reported errors and went into repair and diagnostic cycles. The last one said something like Reboot or Go to further tools. I cannot remember the exact messages but the meaning was as I have described.
I rebooted and Windows 10 came up and ran perfectly.

14) With the SSD working I shrank the C: drive a few GB to make sure the physical space was the same size as the actual filesystem.

15) Create a D: format it and copy all the saved files on to the new D: from the external HDD.

Job done. All my applications worked perfectly and the laptop connected to my wireless network without needing the pass phrase re-entering. I had tried several other ways of cloning the HDD to the SSD, but as the SSD was 20 GB smaller this was the only way
I managed to get it to work.

I hope this helps others to make the HDD to SSD transition.

 

SSD not being shown in disk management

Western Digital got back to me and this solved my problem:

Thank you for your continued response.

Please perform the steps mentioned below to run Diskpart. Please note that following steps will erase all the data on the SSD including partitions and boot sector.

1. Open Command Prompt, Click on Start - Run - Type cmd and hit Enter.

2. Type diskpart, and then press ENTER to open the diskpart tool.

3. Type list disk, and then press ENTER. A list of available hard disks is displayed.

4. Type sel disk #number, and then press ENTER. Number is the number of the hard disk that you want to clean. The hard disk is now selected.

5. Type det disk, and then press ENTER. A list of partitions on the hard disk is displayed. Use this information to verify that the correct disk is selected.

6. Make sure that the disk does not contain required data, type clean all, and then press ENTER to clean the disk. All the partitions and all the data on the disk is permanently removed.

7. Type exit, and then press ENTER to close

 

Does Windows 10 automatically recognise that a SSD has replaced a HDD?

I have recently replaced the HDD in my Windows 10 laptop with a SSD. As I understand it, Windows periodically runs a defragmentation in the background on a HDD. However, SSD drives do not require defragmenting and running such a tool can shorten the life
of a SSD.

The SSD was a clone of the HDD and not a new installation. Will Windows 10 recognize that the laptop now has a SSD and stop its background defragmentation or do I need to take specific steps to prevent this activity occurring on the SSD? If I need to take
action please advise on the steps I should take.

Thanks for any advice anyone can offer.