Popular crypto browser extension kills user SSDs by writing 500GB a day

Users of the cryptocurrency browser extension MetaMask have confirmed what some users are reporting, unusually high disk writing that has been tracked to 5 MB/s, which works out to just shy of 500GB of data per day (432GB to be exact).

2

That cryptocurrency extension is MetaMask, quite a popular browser extension that is typically used for some off-the-beaten-track cryptocurrencies that aren't on popular exchanges. The response from Consensys, the creators of MetaMask, comes after GitHub users discovered a critical bug within MetaMask after installing the extension on a fresh install of a Chromium-based browser.

According to reports, the bug results in the extension writing 5 MB/s continuously in the background, even if the user is logged out of the app. Notably, SSDs don't live forever, and while most are extremely well built, they still have a lifespan, and that lifespan is determined by how much data is written to the drive. Reading does impact the lifespan, but not as much as writing.

SSD manufacturers issue ratings for their products, which typically come in the form of Terabytes Written (TBW), or Drive Writes Per Day (DWPD). TBW could look something like the "600 terabytes of data before the drive might fail," while DWPD would be a number of days a user can fully write the capacity of the drive over its warranty period.

Luckily, SSDs typically last between five and ten years under typical conditions. Despite this, Consensys has confirmed the problem with MetaMask does exist and that it's issuing a fix "imminently".

"While browser extension wallets do regularly write state to disk, which is expected behavior, we've taken note of a recent observation shared by a small number of MetaMask users who reported unusually high disk activity. The issue predominantly impacts users with unusually large state. We're exploring strategies for reducing state size," Consensys said to CoinTelegraph