6 Methods To Check If Your Windows 10/11 Laptop Has An SSD

The type of Hard Drive or Internal storage drive installed on a computer can be HDD (Hard Disk Drive) or SSD (Solid State Drive). While traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive) type storage is cheaper, it is much slower than SSD (Solid State Drive). In addition to providing significantly faster data transfer and retrieval rates, SSDs are shock resistant and consume much less power than HDDs.

Modern mid to high-end PCs commonly use SATA or NVMe SSDs for storage instead of traditional HDDs. You can quickly check if your new laptop has an SSD using the following methods without referring to the manual or disassembling it.

Check If Your Windows 10/11 Laptop Has an SSD

Method 1: Use Task Manager to Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD

1. Press Win + X and choose Task Manager. Switch to the full mode (click More details) if Task Manager opens in small view.
2. Under the Performance tab, click the disk on the left to reveal the actual name of the drive on the right, which usually indicates the type of drive (SSD or HDD).
3. If your PC has multiple internal drives, you’ll need to click each one on the left in succession to learn their properties.

Method 2: Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD via Disk Management

1. Press Win + X and click the Disk Management option to open its window.
2. The left side of the window displays all internal and external drives currently connected to your PC. Right-click on it and then click Properties to know if the drive is HDD or SSD.
3. Click the General tab, and you will verify the actual name of the drive, which typically indicates the drive type (SSD or HDD).

Method 3: Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD using File Explorer

1. Open the File Explorer and navigate to This PC.
2. Right-click on a partition drive and click Properties to open its properties dialogue. Please note that if you have multiple physical drives, ensure you are right-clicking the correct drive belonging to the physical drive you want to identify, whether it’s an SSD or HDD.
3. Under the Hardware tab, you can see if your PC has an SSD or HDD.

When your PC has multiple drives, the Hardware tab lists all drives and only highlights the physical drive containing your selected partition drive.

Method 4: Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD via Device Manager

1. Press Win + X and click the Device Manager option to open its window.
2. In the Device Manager window, expand the Disk drives tree to see the name of the drive, which also includes the drive type (SSD or HDD).

Method 5: Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD through Settings

Note that this feature is currently only available for Windows insiders.

1. Press Win + I to open the Settings app.
2. Navigate to System > Storage.
3. Click on the Manage Disks and Volumes option in the More storage settings section.
4. On the Manage Disks and Volumes page, you can see the type of hard drive (SSD or HDD).

Method 6: Check If Your Laptop Has an SSD using Windows PowerShell

1. Press Win + X and click Windows PowerShell (Admin) from the pop-up menu.
2. In the PowerShell window, enter the command: get-physicaldisk, and press the Enter key.
3. Then you will see the basic information of all the physical disks installed in your computer. And the MediaType parameter will tell if your hard drive is SSD or HDD.

Conclusion

Compared with HDD, SSD has a much faster read and write speed. This is why many individuals upgrade to SSDs to enhance the performance of their computers. However, HDDs remain widely used, particularly in desktop PCs, due to their cost-effectiveness. When selecting a laptop, the type of hard drive is also a crucial factor in the purchasing decision. Therefore, remember to use the above six methods to tell or check if your laptop’s hard drive is SSD or HDD.