Is CHKDISK necessary with SSD?

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Title says it all. Do I really have to run CHKDISK with a SSD drive

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SSD’s don’t have sectors like HDD’s do so, I’d say it’s unecessary.

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Chkdsk fixes logical errors better than physical; SSDs are just as susceptible to filesystem corruption as spinning rust. I’d run it if you suspect filesystem problems – chkdsk /f

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Noel Carboni, jburk07, Ascaris, steeviebops

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I’d agree with that. We know not to defrag SSD’s because it can contribute to premature death of a drive. A chkdsk /f will check for file system errors and correct them. But you would not want to run a chkdsk /r because that would create unnecessary read/write activity on the drive.

Red Ruffnsore

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normally it is unnecessary to run CHKDSK on an SSD drive, unless your computer encountered a BSOD crash or the computer was somehow shutdown improperly

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jburk07

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That’s the same as with rust spinners too.  If all goes well, file system errors shouldn’t occur, but sometimes they do, and unintended shutdowns are often the reason.

If Windows is shut down improperly (by means of BSOD, perhaps), it should set the dirty bit on the drive, which will cause Windows to do a disk check on its own at the next boot.  The last time I ran Windows, it told me it was going to check the drive and did a countdown until the disk check.  I have no idea what newer versions of Windows do.

Linux has this function also.  An unintended shutdown triggers an automatic check, but on an Ext4 volume, the typical kind in Linux, it’s very fast.  On my systems, even my slow Swift, the “checking file system” message during boot flashes so quick that you could miss it if you were not paying attention.

There’s no harm in checking; SSDs don’t wear out from reads, and if there is no error, there won’t be any writing involved.  If there is an error, it needs to be corrected.

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jburk07

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rosie wrote:

Title says it all. Do I really have to run CHKDISK with a SSD drive

No.

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I think @Alex5723 is partially wrong. CHKDSK is for logical errors, generally caused by Windows / power outs, but you can use it to scan your entire disk for bad sectors.

Run it as often as you want to fix logical errors, do not use it to scan the entire disk, your SSD will not thank you.

Mr. Natural wrote:

We know not to defrag SSD’s

Not to manually defrag. Windows still defrags them for you – see this post.

cheers, Paul

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The question is inaccurate and if you mean CHKDSK (note, no I), a bit oversimplified. I don’t mean to criticize; computers are just not simple. The information that I’m writing here may seem complex, but please rest assured it is still oversimplified. It is the nature of the beast.

CHKDSK is a file system integrity checker.

NTFS is the primary file system in use for Windows (more about this later).

SSDs (solid state disk drives) carry the NTFS file system in the same way, logically, as HDDs (spinning hard disk drives). SSDs address data logically by block number and store clusters and link the file system structure together just like HDDs do. They just don’t physically store it in the same way inside the box. The very fact that you can unplug an HDD from a SATA cable and plug in an SSD is testament to the fact that the logical addressing is consistent across the two architectures. SSD controllers essentially do backflips to emulate HDDs. It helped in selling the first ones.

NTFS is a journaling file system, and it’s inherently resistant to becoming corrupted because of things like unexpected power interruptions or software crashes. Gone for decades are the days when file systems commonly get corrupted in normal use, BUT… Corruption CAN still occur, as sure as a 1 can be written in place of a 0 or vice versa. It’s just not common nowadays.

So yes, CHKDSK is still there specifically to check (and CHKDSK /F to fix) the file system structure if it somehow DOES become corrupted. I would call this “necessary”.

It fills this roll as it always has. But chances are you don’t need to worry about it. It doesn’t happen often and your operating system will generally self-detect a case where the file system is “dirty” and fix things itself with an automatic CHKDSK /F behind the scenes at bootup.

What about CHKDSK /R, which methodically reads all the blocks from an HDD with the implication that they are physical sectors on a spinning drive, and if there are read errors it tries to re-read and correct then move the data to different logical blocks? I’m not saying you couldn’t run this operation, but it won’t do you much good on most SSD-equipped systems.

That’s not to say blocks of flash memory in an SSD can’t get weak or go bad – they can and do. But SSD controllers take care of all their hardware management internally (as do modern HDD controllers; hey, I didn’t say things were simple – it is 2020, no longer a simple time).

So in a way, an oversimplified answer to the original oversimplified question is “you shouldn’t generally need to worry about CHKDSK, but you (or someone repairing your system) might need it“. It CAN BE applicable.

I wouldn’t want to have a system without the tool. But anecdotally I haven’t NEEDED it on any SSD-equipped system I’ve used in the past decade. All my runs have come up clean.

-Noel

P.S., NTFS isn’t the only game in town. The ReFS (Resilient File System) is an alternative to NTFS, and actually works well. It seemed poised to be an NTFS replacement and has some pretty cool features, but it never really took off – mostly IMO because Microsoft never made it possible to boot from ReFS. ReFS, by contrast to NTFS, REALLY doesn’t need CHKDSK because self-healing is built right in, and make no mistake, CHKDSK will tell you exactly this (see below). Microsoft knows all about how to manage disks and hasn’t just left CHKDSK in the OS just because they’re too lazy to take it out.

Rest assured that CHKDSK itself would let you know if it wasn’t applicable to an SSD.

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