- Microsoft has completed its investigation into experiences of an SSD-breaking bug
- The corporate mentioned the August replace for Home windows 11 is not guilty
- There are nonetheless experiences of drive failures filtering in, although, and a few people aren’t proud of Microsoft’s conclusion
Microsoft has been investigating experiences of the newest Home windows 11 replace breaking some SSDs, and we now have the outcomes of that endeavor – and the corporate discovered the August patch for the OS is not guilty.
Bleeping Laptop experiences that Microsoft posted a service alert on its admin middle (a hyperlink that may’t be reached for regular Microsoft accounts, solely enterprise accounts) stating the next: “After thorough investigation, Microsoft has discovered no connection between the August 2025 Home windows safety replace and the forms of onerous drive failures reported on social media.”
Microsoft added: “As all the time, we proceed to observe suggestions after the discharge of each Home windows replace, and can examine any future experiences.”
Observe that Microsoft mentions “onerous drive failures”, and it’s because the issue has hit onerous disks too, primarily based on experiences – though the vast majority of incidents have affected SSDs.
Microsoft has labored with its companions in investigating the problem, together with SSD (and onerous drive) makers as you would possibly anticipate, however collaboratively they’ve turned up no proof of a connection between the newest replace for Home windows 11 24H2 and the reported drive failures.
Certainly, we already heard straight from Phison, which makes controllers for SSDs which experiences have recommended usually tend to be concerned in these failures, refuting that notion, and stating clearly that it could not reproduce the bug (throughout 4,500 hours of testing).
Microsoft additional clarifies that its Home windows 11 telemetry – diagnostic information taken from computer systems working its OS – does not present any proof of a rise in drive failures, both.
Evaluation: coincidence and ‘pure’ drive failures – or one thing else?
In brief: there’s nothing to see right here, transfer alongside. Based mostly on Microsoft’s investigation – which took some time, so I am assuming went into some depth (Phison’s definitely did) – the Home windows 11 August replace just isn’t answerable for breaking SSDs or onerous drives (and neither are Phison controllers).
The issue is that there are nonetheless a good few Home windows 11 customers posting throughout on-line boards, equivalent to Reddit, insisting that they’ve had their SSD sunk by this most up-to-date replace for Home windows 11. Then once more, there are others posting about managing fleets of PCs and seeing nothing with this cumulative replace having been utilized – not even a touch of a drive failure throughout these computer systems.
So, what is going on on? One principle being aired is that it could possibly be coincidence – drive failures occur on a regular basis, and so in any given week, some Home windows 11 PCs will see some breakages on this respect. And since there are experiences of the August replace being the issue, people will assume that it is at fault, when it is not.
Nonetheless, you would definitely argue that there are too many experiences for this to be a cushty conclusion. Moreover, if it was a case of erroneously pinning pure drive failures right down to the problem, it might additionally level to older {hardware} being affected – as failures usually tend to occur with aged SSDs – however there are experiences of latest (or almost new) drives getting hit by this bug.
There may be one other chance right here that, even given Microsoft’s assertion that there is nothing overtly fallacious with Home windows 11, there might nonetheless be one thing in regards to the August replace – buried deep, maybe – that is one way or the other making a {hardware} fault in sure drives extra prone to happen. In different phrases, this would not essentially be Microsoft’s fault, but it surely would possibly nonetheless relate not directly to the replace.
Nonetheless, with Microsoft and Phison seemingly unable to breed the bug over an entire load of testing, this appears moderately unlikely. Which brings us again spherical to: what is going on on with these experiences nonetheless trickling out? There is no clear reply right here, however there are clearly some sad folks posting on-line about their SSD woes.
It is value going again over the obvious reason behind the bug, which is initiating a big file copy – like a recreation set up, for instance. As Bleeping Laptop factors out, the glitch appears to be extra prone to occur in case your drive is over half full (60% or extra). Going by experiences, the affected SSD is vanishing off the system – although in some instances it returns after a easy reboot (in others, it does not, which is clearly an enormous headache).
Home windows 11 Residence customers can solely delay putting in a cumulative replace for a short time, so they are going to get it piped by means of to their machine finally, if they have been making an attempt to keep away from it. At that time, it is as much as the person person how assured they really feel in the event that they need to perform a hefty file operation just like the set up of a chunky recreation or app. In the event that they’re nonetheless paranoid, and their drive is sort of full, they may simply need to play it secure for now.
Microsoft notes it could “examine any future experiences”, so we might but hear extra from the corporate; however in the meanwhile, it seems to need to draw a line underneath the matter. And for now, we now have to belief the conclusions of Microsoft and Phison – though evidently there are folks on the market who stay skeptical, and really feel that we nonetheless have not obtained to the underside of this episode.
