Question My SSD keeps locking to 100% activity

[Asad Kothawala]

So I reinstalled Windows 10 after a clean ISO install on my 120 GB SSD. It's this really old PNY Optima SSD. Device Manager says the model is SSD2SC120GSA754 and the firmware is N111.
Immediately I started experiencing issues where my SSD would get locked at 100% for occasionally minutes at a time with no actual reading or writing to the disk. Even CPU usage drops to 1-3% at the same time. I figured it had something to do with Windows 10 and the firmware of the SSD. Because it was functioning perfectly fine before the reinstall. I tried a whole bunch of things with the OS settings and registry to stop this behavior and reinstalled windows with a fresh ISO for good measure. No dice.
Eventually I simply purchased a new SSD, a WD SN550. This drive is functioning perfectly.
Since I figured the problem with my older SSD was just how it was interacting with windows I decided to install StoreMI and make it a caching disk for my 2TB HDD. But I am now experiencing the same locking issue with the HDD when the two drives are connected with StoreMI.
I'm not convinced there's something wrong with the drive itself purely based on the timing of its failure. I'd really like to use this as a caching disk.
Please help
Thank you!

P.S: If anyone has driver/firmware for this disk, a link would really be appreciated!

 

[rocktalkrock]

Have you run the PNY SSD Toolbox to check the health of your SSD? You should also be able to update the drives firmware using the Toolbox software.

 

[Asad Kothawala]

Have you run the PNY SSD Toolbox to check the health of your SSD? You should also be able to update the drives firmware using the Toolbox software.

PNY Toolbox version 1.28 doesn't seem to detect my drive. The PNY SSD is no longer my system drive, do you think that might be why?
I do recall using some other tool from PNY that had checked my drive out as healthy though. I will try and locate it and post a screenshot.

 

[Asad Kothawala]

Have you run the PNY SSD Toolbox to check the health of your SSD? You should also be able to update the drives firmware using the Toolbox software.

This is the best PNY software can do for me, it seems. The links they point to appear to be dead btw.

 

[rocktalkrock]

Try downloading and running a program called Hard Disk Sentinel to check the health of your SSD.

 

[Asad Kothawala]

Try downloading and running a program called Hard Disk Sentinel to check the health of your SSD.

As worrisome as my HDD looks, the SSD in question appears to be fine. I am going to look into what the hell is up with my HDD but let's keep this thread on topic.