tes_kitty

That depends on the controller firmware.

But if you want to be sure, just do a read-only badblocks test (if you use Linux). That'll force the controller to read all blocks and (hopefully) rewrite those it finds to be weak.

Well, it should have given a warning that it couldn't save due to lack of space.

I use cheap USB sticks if I want to hand someone some data.

Here, have what you want on a stick. No, I don't need it back, you can keep it.

You need 2 drives, one as backup. HDs, no matter how good, can fail at any time without warning.

The 256 GB WD Black NVMe SSD in this system here has been running flawlessly since 2018... Data point of one, I know, but I can't complain.