Use Intel Memory and Storage Tool (MAS) to inspect the exact Optane drive’s SMART health data before trusting it with an operating system. Check Percentage Used alongside Available Spare, Critical Warning, media or internal errors, and MAS’s overall health status; run a diagnostic scan if available. Then back up valuable data. These readings help assess wear and current warnings, but they cannot guarantee future reliability or establish that an unspecified Optane product will boot on your computer.
Identify the exact Optane product first
Before interpreting a health report—or planning to boot from the drive—identify its model and interface. Intel’s Optane support pages cover different SSDs, memory modules, and combination products. A cache module or Optane-plus-NAND product should not be assumed to work as a standalone boot SSD.
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Compatibility depends on the specific drive and target system, including the motherboard or platform, firmware/BIOS configuration, and operating-system support. Check the documentation for both the drive and computer; SMART health alone does not answer the compatibility question. Intel lists Optane product families as discontinued, a relevant consideration for support and availability, but that does not determine an individual drive’s condition. See Intel’s available SSD management tools.
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Intel documents the MAS graphical interface for Windows and its command-line interface for Windows, Linux, and ESXi. Intel says its tools support x86/x64 platforms; visibility and support for a particular drive can still depend on the system and connection. For the GUI, Intel’s documented workflow is to open SMART and select the drive. The readings can be exported. The CLI is useful when you want to identify a drive by index or retrieve its SMART log directly.
#1 Best Overall
- Identify the right drive. In a command prompt or terminal with MAS available, run
intelmas show -intelssd. Match the listed model to the Optane drive and note its index, especially if the system has several drives. - Retrieve SMART health details. For the Optane-specific CLI workflow, run
intelmas.exe show -nvmelog smarthealthinfo -intelssd <ssd_index>, replacing<ssd_index>with the correct index. Intel also documentsintelmas show -sensor -intelssd Xfor NVMe health information. - Use the required permissions. Intel instructs Linux users to run the CLI with root privileges and Windows users to open Command Prompt as Administrator.
- Review the full report. Look for Percentage Used, Available Spare and its threshold, Critical Warning, media or internal errors, and any error-log indicators the drive reports. Attributes vary by drive; a field that is absent is not necessarily a zero reading.
- Run a diagnostic if available. In MAS, select Diagnostic Scan and choose Quick Diagnostic or Full Diagnostic when the Optane SSD is supported and the option is present. A scan is an additional check, not a guarantee of future operation.
For Intel’s detailed GUI and CLI instructions, see how to get SMART attributes for an Intel Optane SSD. Intel’s diagnostic walkthrough is specifically for the MAS GUI: Quick and Full Diagnostic scans for Intel Optane SSDs.
Interpret the health indicators together
Percentage Used
This NVMe attribute estimates how much endurance has been consumed. Intel says 100 means the estimated endurance has been consumed, but it may not indicate device failure; the value can exceed 100. Intel’s attribute description says the value updates once per power-on hour while the controller is not asleep. It is not a countdown to failure, and a low reading is not a reliability guarantee. See Intel’s Optane SMART attribute definitions.
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- 1B Storage Capacity
- M2. 2280 Form Factor
- PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 Interface
- 1800 MB/s Sequential Read Speeds. 1800 Sequential Write Speeds. Intel QLC 3D NAND
Available Spare and Critical Warning
Available Spare is a normalized measure of remaining spare capacity, expressed from 0 to 100%. Intel’s reference gives 10% as the threshold; check the threshold reported for your drive rather than treating spare capacity as interchangeable with Percentage Used.
Critical Warning is a bit field, so a nonzero value calls for context rather than a guess based on the number alone. Intel describes warning conditions for spare falling below threshold, temperature exceeding threshold, reliability degraded by excessive media or internal errors, media becoming read-only, and volatile-memory backup failure. Investigate which condition is reported and whether MAS flags it.
Rank #3
- Snappy PC experience with short boot times, fast application launches, extraordinary gaming experience and responsive browsing
- Pair Intel Optane memory with storage media (HDD, SSD), to get amazing performance and responsiveness without compromising storage capacities
- Supported on 7th Gen Intel Corei3 processor and above
- Requires Optane Ready Motherboard and storage drive such as HDD and/or SSD
- A computer with Intel Optane memory adapts to your everyday computing activities to make your repetitive tasks increasingly faster, smoother and easier to accomplish
Media errors, internal errors, and MAS Drive Health
Review the error indicators alongside the wear estimate. Intel bases MAS Drive Health on current SMART values and thresholds: Good means attributes are above their thresholds; Warning means an attribute has reached its final value, and Intel recommends backing up and considering replacement; Critical indicates a SMART critical warning or degradation-related critical error, and Intel strongly recommends backing up and considering replacement.
A MAS health figure below 100% is not, by itself, a failure verdict. Intel says this indicator reflects reads and writes and falls from 100% as the drive is used; its example describes an Optane SSD at 96% as still in very good condition. Intel discusses firmware update and secure erase in the narrower context of orange-to-red health together with stability issues. Secure erase destroys data, so it is not a routine health-check step. See Intel’s explanation of why an Optane SSD can show less than 100% Drive Health.
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- OEM PRODUCT, NO PACKAGING.
Estimated Life Remaining
If MAS reports Estimated Life Remaining, treat it as a workload-dependent estimate, not a precise countdown or a prediction that the drive will reliably boot. Intel says it is based on usage to date and may become inaccurate if the workload changes. Intel makes the estimate available for Intel SSDs when SMART is enabled or a SMART health log is available. Intel explains the meaning of Drive Health and Estimated Life Remaining.
Decide whether to rely on it as a boot drive
- Back up first. Preserve anything valuable before installing an operating system or making the drive your only boot device.
- Investigate warnings and errors. A critical status, warning, read-only condition, or media/internal errors is a reason to protect data and assess the drive further—not to rely on a single endurance percentage.
- Check compatibility separately. Confirm that the exact Optane model is intended to function as a standalone boot drive and that the target system’s firmware and operating system support it.
- Keep a recovery path. A health report describes current reported conditions; it cannot guarantee the drive will continue operating. Do not make a used drive the only place your important data exists.
Intel also discusses how to assess NVMe SSD degradation in How to Know How Much an NVMe SSD Has Been Degraded.
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