Microsoft says recent reports of SSD failures were not caused by a Windows 11 update

Earlier this month, reports began to emerge on social media that a pair of Windows 11 security updates (KB5063878 and KB5062660) were causing issues with SSDs. The first reported case involved a user attempting to install a significant update to the Cyberpunk 2077 game. Additional reports alleged that for large transfers of over 50GB on an SSD that is more than 50% full, the drive could either disappear or outright fail.

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From there, it looked like DRAM-less SSDs from a wide range of companies, including many powered by a Phison controller, were affected by this Windows 11 security update. This led to both Microsoft and Phison responding with word that they were investigating the issue and the reports.

Last week, Phison released a statement that said that after conducting over 4,500 hours of testing, it was unable to replicate reports of SSDs failing due to the recent Windows 11 security updates. And now, Microsoft has confirmed (via BleepingComputer) that its investigation has also failed to find any link between the recent Windows 11 update and reports of SSDs failing.

"After thorough investigation, Microsoft has found no connection between the August 2025 Windows security update and the types of hard drive failures reported on social media," Microsoft wrote in an update to the service alert for the reported SSD issues. "As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports."

Of course, this doesn't mean that reports of SSDs failing after a recent Windows 11 update are inaccurate; however, with Phison's response and now Microsoft's, it does suggest that the problem may be unrelated to the Windows 11 update or specific to Phison and other SSD controllers. One of the common threads found among the reports was related to heavy SSD workloads, for which Phison recommends using proper cooling and heatsinks to maintain optimal drive health and avoid issues such as thermal throttling.