How to find out SSD, NVMe or HDD in a Windows 10/11 computer

 These days, there are three types of drive you can find in the computer.

• Hard disk drive (HDD) is a classic device with a magnetic spinning disk inside. These drives were first introduced in 1956, and are widely used until now. They perform read and write operations with a magnetic head, and can also retrive data in random-access order.
• Solid-state drive (SSD) is a modern type of drives which has no rotating parts. It is like a huge flash drive with a controller that operates the data transfer. The information will be written into special memory cells. Obviously, SSD work much faster than HDDs and produce no noise. Classic SSDs are often interchangable with HDDs.
• Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) is the latest version of solid state drives. They are different from classic SSDs as they use a special interface. They are not compatible with HDDs and Sata SSDs, yet they offer incredible data transfer speeds. Also they are very compact in size.

Detect SSD or HDD in the Optimize Disks tool

1. Right-click the Start button and select Run, or press Win + R.
2. Type dfrgui in the Run box and hit Enter to open the Optimize Drives tool.

1. 
   In the drive list, look at the Media type column. For an SSD drive, it will say Solid state drive.

You are done. While this method is the simplest one, it may be not that accurate. Because Windows detects the drive type with its own tests, including the drive speed. If it works slowly or is too new for your Windows version, the OS may be detect it as HDD.

Another method is a PowerShell applet.

Find SSD or HDD in Windows 11 with PowerShell

1. Press Win + X and select Terminal (Admin) from the menu.
2. Ensure it opens with a PowerShell tab, and type the following command: Get-PhysicalDisk.
3. In the output, check out the MediaType column. It will say SSD or HDD depending on the drive type.

Finally, you can use the Task Manager app to learn about your drives.

Using Task Manager

In Windows 11, Microsoft has updated the Task Manager with advanced capabilities. Besides the updated look, it is able to display extra details about your hardware.

To find the drive type with Task Manager, do the following.

1. Open the Task Manager app with the Ctrl + Shift + Esc shortcut.
2. In the app, click on the hamburger icon to see the text labels, and then click on the Performance tab.

1. Finally, on the Performance tab, select the disk. You will see if it is SSD or HDD in a note below the partition names.

Also, you can try to look on the Internet for technical specification of your drive. There, you will find a lot of information about it, including its type. But first you have to learn its model.

Find drive type by its model

First of all, you need to find the drive model. You can find it either in Device Manager,  Task Manager, or System Information tool.

Task Manager

• In Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), the Disks tab on the Performance page shows the drive model.

Device Manager

• Right-click the Start button in the taskbar and select Device Manager from the menu.
• Expand the storage section.
• Write down the drive model.

Using System Information tool

1. Press Win + R and enter msinfo32 in the Run dialog.

1. 
   In the left pane, expand the tree to Components > Storage > Disks.
2. Look for the drive model in the right and select it.
3. Press Ctrl + C to copy the drive model to the clipboard.

Now, when you know the drive model, do a web search with Google or Bing using the model words as a keyword. On the vendor's website or some reputable hardware resource you will find all the information about the drive, including its type. I.e. it will show if it is SSD, NVMe, or HDD.

Now, when you know how to find if you have SSD or HDD, let's look how to differentiate NVMe for SATA SSD.

Find out NVMe in Windows 11

1. Press Win + I to open Settings.
2. Go to the System > Storage page and click on the Disks and Volumes option under Advanced storage settings.

3. On the next page, click on the Properties button next to the drive name. 

4. The properties page will show the NVMe line for the Bus type. Otherwise, you will see SATA.

You are done!

 

Note: On some devices, NVMe is reported as 'RAID'. It must be the driver which reports the interface type to the OS. It is also reported as RAID in third-party tools reviewed in the next chapter. Keep this in mind.

For the completeness' sake, let's review a couple of alternative methods you can use for finding out NVMe in Windows 11.

Find if you have NVMe in Disk Properties

1. Right-click the Start button and select Device Manager.

2. In Device Manager, expand the Disk drives category on the left.

3. Double-click the drive to open its properties. 

4. In the Properties window, switch to the Details tab. 

5. In the Property drop-down list, select Hardware Ids. 

6. In the Value list, check out the list entries. It should include "NMVe" for NVMe drives.

How to Check If Your Hard Drive Is SSD or HDD

 If you recently bought a new computer or hard drive, you might be wondering if your hard drive is an SSD drive or a standard HDD.

Before we begin, let's look at the differences between the two drives.

HDD is short for Hard Disk Drive. You could almost call them old school nowadays. They contain platters and a moving actuator arm that can read and write data to the platter surface. This is why you can hear an HDD making noise. They tend to be slow and require defragmentation regularly to optimize where data is placed. All hard drives fail sooner or later because they have moving parts.

SSD is short for Solid State Drive. They use integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently and are much faster than the traditional HDD. Computer boot times of 10 seconds or less is not uncommon. When SanDisk released their 20Mb SSD drive in 1991, the cost was $1,000. SSD drives used to be so expensive in modern times that many people would purchase a smaller (128MB for example) SSD just to run their operating system and favorite programs. SSD drives became larger and more affordable in 2018 with 1TB drives costing only $100. SSD drives do not need defragmentation but instead use TRIM which tells the SSD drive which data blocks it can erase because they are no longer in use. TRIM can prolong the SSD lifespan and performance. The jury is still out on how long SSD drives last, but we've had the same drives in use for a few years.

Here's how to tell what type of hard drive you have.

1: Using Disk Defragmentor

Press the Windows Key + S and type in defrag, then click on Defragment & Optimize Drives.

As mentioned, we don't need to defrag SSD drives, but we're just looking for Solid State Drive or Hard Disk Drive.

2: Using PowerShell

Open PowerShell or the Command Prompt and type in PowerShell "Get-PhysicalDisk | Format-Table -AutoSize".

3: Using Freeware Apps

There are so many freeware system information apps available; it can be hard to pick one.

We've always liked Belarc Advisor, but you might also consider HWiNFO, HiBit System Information, and SIV (System Information Viewer).