Using CDI

What is CDI?

Crystal Disk Info (CDI) is a tool to check hard drive health.

It collects a drive’s S.M.A.R.T. data and creates a log for us to analyze.

How to use CDI

  1. Download and install Crystal Disk Info

  2. At the top of the program’s window, copy the contents by going to Edit -> Copy

    CMOS battery

  3. If you are being helped in Discord you can paste the content directly with Ctrl + V. If this was requested on the subreddit please put it on Pastebin then supply the link in your comment.

Analyzing SMART data in CDI

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system included in drives (SSDs and HDDs), its primary function is to detect and report various indicators of a drive’s reliability and health.

Important: Any app that uses SMART data to analyze drive health is just a diagnostic utility. It cannot and should not be used to completely evaluate drive health as there are many factors that won’t show up. However, it is a key component and produces a lot of useful information. Just know that drive can have perfectly fine SMART data and still fail without any warning.

When analyzing a drive’s health, it may be best to look at the raw SMART values, which are usually hexadecimal.

If detailed SMART data is unavailable (as is the case with most NVMe drives, for instance), you can refer to other indicators such as a drive’s health percentage. Although this is less reliable.

See our guide on disk health for more information.