Systems and methods presented herein provide for testing degradation in a storage device. In one embodiment, a storage controller is operable to test individual portions of a first of the plurality of storage areas of the storage device by: analyzing individual portions of the first storage area; determining that one or more of the individual portions of the first storage area have failed; and retire the failed one or more portions of the first storage area. The storage controller is further operable to write to the first storage area using an error correction code (ECC), and to test the remaining portions of the first storage area to determine whether the first storage area should be retired in response to writing to the first storage area.