Does Microsoft clear Windows 11 update in SSD failure probe?

Microsoft has concluded its investigation into reports of SSD and HDD failures linked to the Windows 11 24H2 security update KB5063878, released in August 2025. The company found no connection between the update and the reported drive failures or data corruption issues. In a service alert update, Microsoft stated that after thorough investigation, it could not reproduce the issues on up-to-date systems and found no link to the KB5063878 update. However, Microsoft continues to monitor feedback and will investigate any future reports.

Phison, a major SSD controller manufacturer, also conducted over 4,500 hours of testing and was unable to replicate the reported issues. They suggested that users ensure proper cooling, such as using heatsinks on high-performance drives under heavy workloads, but found no evidence that the Windows update was causing drive failures.

Initial reports suggested that the issue occurred during heavy write operations (e.g., transferring 50GB or more) on drives over 60% full, particularly affecting SSDs with Phison NAND controllers, though other brands like SanDisk, Corsair, and Samsung were also mentioned. Some users reported drives disappearing from the OS or showing as “RAW” partitions, with issues often resolving after a system restart, though data corruption was a concern in some cases.

While Microsoft and Phison have cleared the update of causing SSD failures, users with drives over 60% capacity are still advised to avoid large, continuous file transfers (tens of gigabytes) until more is known about the root cause, as a precaution. Backing up critical data is also recommended.