KB5063878: No Widespread SSD Failures in Windows 11 24H2

Microsoft and Phison have now all but closed the book on the late‑August panic: after weeks of community reports, lab reproductions and headlines warning that Windows 11 24H2’s August cumulative (KB5063878) was “bricking” SSDs, thorough vendor and Microsoft testing found no reproducible link between the update and mass SSD failure. BornCity’s latest post relays Microsoft and Phison’s findings and confirms the update shows no detectable impact on drives after coordinated investigation. (borncity.com) (support.microsoft.com)

Background / Overview​

The issue that prompted the alarm began as a small cluster of social‑media posts and hobbyist tests in mid‑August 2025. Those early reports described a striking and repeatable symptom set: when large, sustained sequential writes—commonly cited around the ~50 GB mark—were performed on certain NVMe SSDs (often drives more than ~60% full), the target device would temporarily vanish from Windows’ device list and, in a minority of cases, return corrupted or unreadable storage after reboot. Specialist outlets and enthusiast sites picked up the story and began compiling reproduction steps and lists of allegedly affected models. (tomshardware.com)
Microsoft published the combined servicing‑stack + LCU package KB5063878 (OS Build 26100.4946) on August 12, 2025; the KB entry lists the release contents and initially stated Microsoft was “not currently aware of any issues” with the update. That public KB remains the authoritative record of what shipped. (support.microsoft.com)
BornCity and several independent publications summarized the early evidence and recommended caution—back up data, avoid large sequential writes on freshly patched systems, and hold off mass deployment while vendors investigated. Those recommendations were pragmatic: community tests produced consistent trigger profiles and useful mitigations even if the ultimate root cause had not yet been proven. (borncity.com)

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Timeline: how the incident unfolded​

Mid‑August — first reports and community reproductions​

A Japanese hobbyist first reported disappearing SSDs during heavy writes after installing recent Windows updates. The pattern—drive vanishing from File Explorer/Device Manager, unreadable SMART, sometimes corrupted data—was reproduced by a number of independent testers and consolidated into public threads and model lists. Early coverage by Tom’s Hardware, TechSpot and other outlets amplified the claims and urged caution. (tomshardware.com, techspot.com)

Late August — Microsoft and vendors notified​

Microsoft opened an internal investigation and began collecting Feedback Hub and Support reports from affected users. Controller manufacturers and SSD vendors (notably Phison) engaged with Microsoft and community testers to reproduce the fault across large fleets of drives and controlled lab hardware. Microsoft’s service alert later stated it was unable to reproduce the storage failures in its internal testing and telemetry. (bleepingcomputer.com)

End of August / Early September — Phison’s tests and Microsoft’s conclusion​

Phison performed an extensive testing campaign—publicly described as more than 4,500 cumulative hours and over 2,200 test cycles on candidate drives—and reported that it could not reproduce the reported failures nor had received partner/customer complaints consistent with the social‑media claims. Microsoft’s follow‑up service note likewise reported no telemetry‑backed increase in disk failures linked to the update. Those vendor conclusions prompted a wave of coverage reporting that the update was likely not the root cause for the majority of reports. (tomshardware.com, bleepingcomputer.com)

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What the community saw, and why it mattered​

The observable pattern reported by community testers had three defining characteristics:

• A trigger profile of large, sustained sequential writes (examples: large game updates, mass archive extraction, cloning) often in the tens of gigabytes.
• A reproducible failure mode where the target drive temporarily vanished from the OS stack (File Explorer, Device Manager, Disk Management) and SMART/controller registers appeared unreadable to vendor utilities.
• Mixed recovery behavior: in many cases the SSD returned after a reboot; in others, the partition was corrupted or the drive remained inaccessible without vendor‑level intervention.

Those characteristics together translated into a real data‑integrity risk for workloads that rely on large single transfers or continuous write pressure. That was the legitimate reason enthusiasts, IT pros and media outlets sounded the alarm even before vendors reached conclusions. (tomshardware.com)
However, the reach of those reports—how many devices were truly affected in the wild, and whether the update itself was necessary or sufficient to cause failures—remained uncertain. Community reproductions were invaluable for creating a working hypothesis, but they were limited by small sample sizes, narrow hardware mixes and potential confounders (thermal conditions, defective batches, power issues, or firmware quirks). Those limitations ultimately influenced vendor testing priorities.

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What vendors and Microsoft actually tested and found​

Two heavyweight claims underpin the follow‑up narrative now: Phison’s inability to reproduce the issue across extensive testing, and Microsoft’s telemetry analysis showing no uptick in drive failures correlated with KB5063878 installations.

• Phison: the company reported a multi‑thousand‑hour testing campaign (reported figures: more than 4,500 hours and over 2,200 test cycles) on drives identified in community reports and did not observe the failure mode in their controlled test matrix. Phison also stated it had not received confirmed partner or customer complaints matching the social‑media descriptions. (tomshardware.com, pcgamer.com)
• Microsoft: internal reviews and telemetry analysis failed to reveal a causal connection between the August cumulative update and the types of storage failures shared publicly. Microsoft asked customers to submit additional evidence via Feedback Hub or Support when those initial reproductions were proposed; after deeper data collection and partner collaboration, Microsoft found no reproducible link. (bleepingcomputer.com)

Both organizations framed their statements carefully: inability to reproduce is not identical to a categorical denial that any incident ever occurred, but it is a meaningful weight of evidence against a systemic, update‑driven failure across the installed base.

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Technical possibilities and mechanistic hypotheses​

Even with the “all clear” headlines, the incident remains instructive because it highlights how fragile interactions can be between host firmware/OS code, NVMe drivers, controller firmware and storage device thermal/operational states.

• Host Memory Buffer (HMB) and DRAM‑less SSDs: HMB allows DRAM‑less NVMe drives to borrow a slice of system RAM for mapping tables. Changes in OS allocation policies or timing can, in theory, expose firmware edge cases on DRAM‑less controllers. Past Windows 11 24H2 rollouts included HMB‑related incidents, and community posts initially considered HMB a plausible factor. That hypothesis remains plausible as a mechanism for some reported cases but is not proven to be the causal root for the wide set of reports. (techspot.com)
• Thermal and hardware defects: Phison and some outlets reminded users that SSDs under heavier loads can throttle thermally and that defective or marginal components (power regulators, NAND die, solder joints) can fail under load irrespective of operating‑system changes. Proper cooling was suggested as prudent general practice during the testing period. Phison explicitly advised good thermal management even as it said the update was not to blame. (tomshardware.com)
• Coincidence vs. causation: Where a small group of units fail after a common date, it’s tempting to blame the update; rigorous attribution requires broad telemetry and controlled reproduction. Microsoft and Phison’s inability to reproduce the fault at scale, combined with an absence of telemetry spikes, strongly points to either isolated hardware failures or coincident conditions in the initial test rigs rather than an update‑wide regression. (support.microsoft.com, pcgamer.com)

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Evidence appraisal — strengths and limits​

Strengths of the vendor investigations​

• Scale and methodology: Phison’s reported thousands of test hours and Microsoft’s telemetry access provide coverage far beyond what hobbyists can achieve. That scale matters when distinguishing systemic regressions from corner cases or manufacturing defects. (tomshardware.com, bleepingcomputer.com)
• Cross‑industry collaboration: Microsoft’s coordination with controller makers and OEMs expedited cross‑validation and reduced the likelihood of an undiscovered, widespread regression persisting unnoticed. (bleepingcomputer.com)

Limits and remaining risks​

• Non‑public test matrices: Neither Microsoft nor Phison disclosed exhaustive test configurations, specific firmware versions, or every device batch tested. That means a narrow hardware/firmware combination could still harbor a latent issue not observed in vendors’ test sets.
• Under‑reporting sensitivity: If a small population of affected drives exists (e.g., a defective manufacturing batch), telemetry aggregation might dilute signal and prevent easy detection. That makes vendor follow‑up and direct reports from affected users still valuable for forensic closure. (pureinfotech.com)
• Community reproducibility caveats: Community tests were useful in quickly surfacing a plausible pattern, but their small sample sizes and the absence of rigorous environmental controls mean that those reproductions should be treated as indicators rather than definitive proof. Any claim that KB5063878 categorically “bricked” drives across the installed base is not supported by vendor telemetry.

Wherever a claim cannot be fully corroborated via vendor telemetry or reproducible test rigs, it should be flagged as unverified. Several early model lists and a circulated “Phison affected controllers” document have been called out as inaccurate or even fabricated; those specific artifacts should be treated with caution unless vendor‑confirmed. (tomshardware.com, tech.yahoo.com)

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Practical guidance for users and administrators​

Even if KB5063878 itself is now cleared as the likely systemic culprit, the incident reinforced several practical steps that reduce risk for sensitive workloads:

• Backup first. Back up critical data before mass update campaigns or large transfers—this is basic hygiene unaffected by the incident’s final attribution.
• Avoid very large sequential writes immediately after applying major updates until your inventory of drives and firmware is validated: split large copies into smaller batches where feasible. Early community reproductions suggested failure was more likely under continuous writes of tens of gigabytes.
• Check and apply SSD firmware from vendors. Vendors sometimes release firmware updates resolving edge‑case behaviors; keeping drives updated reduces attack surface for subtle host/firmware interactions.
• Monitor vendor advisories and Windows Release Health for any change in findings. Microsoft retains the option to reclassify an issue if new telemetry arises. (support.microsoft.com)
• Staged rollouts for enterprise. Use pilot rings and phased deployment for monthly cumulative updates—particularly for endpoints that handle heavy I/O workloads (media workstations, VDI hosts, build servers). Known‑Issue Rollback and WSUS controls remain useful levers.

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What this episode means for update trust and ecosystem resilience​

The incident is a case study in modern platform stewardship: when thousands of hardware permutations meet frequent OS servicing, observation noise is inevitable, and robust telemetry plus vendor partnerships make the difference between rumor and resolution.

• Community triage matters. Hobbyists and enthusiasts surfaced a credible symptom set quickly; that early detection focused vendor attention and produced practical mitigations for power users. Community testing remains a valuable early‑warning system.
• Scale and data matter more. Vendor telemetry and multi‑device lab testing are essential for distinguishing systemic regressions from isolated hardware failures or coincidental timing. The inability of Phison and Microsoft to reproduce the failure at scale undermines the initial attribution to KB5063878 for the broader installed base. (tomshardware.com, bleepingcomputer.com)
• Communication tone is important. Vendors and platform maintainers must balance quick public updates (to calm users) with careful technical disclosure (to avoid prematurely dismissing real but narrow faults). Microsoft and Phison walked that tightrope by publicly announcing negative findings while continuing to accept customer reports.

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Final assessment and a cautious conclusion​

BornCity’s update—that Microsoft and Phison’s tests show no detectable SSD impact from KB5063878—accurately reflects the balance of authority and evidence at this time: vendor testing and Microsoft telemetry offer strong evidence against a widespread, update‑driven SSD failure. (borncity.com, support.microsoft.com)
That outcome doesn’t erase the practical lessons learned from the weeks of investigation. The following summary points capture the most important takeaways:

• The most likely interpretation: A narrow set of early incidents were either coincidental hardware failures, environmental factors (thermal/assembly defects), or highly specific combinations that vendors could not reproduce at scale. Vendor and Microsoft testing, together with telemetry, did not find a systemic regression attributable to KB5063878. (pcgamer.com, bleepingcomputer.com)
• What remains unproven: It is still technically possible that a rare combination of firmware, hardware batch and workload could reproduce the failure. Because neither vendor disclosure nor telemetry mapping is exhaustive, affected users should continue to report confirmed, reproducible failures to Microsoft and vendors for forensic follow‑up. (pureinfotech.com)
• Short‑term posture for admins and power users: Continue with cautious staging for major updates, maintain current SSD firmware, and prioritize backups and cooling for heavy‑IO endpoints. These are durable best practices regardless of whether an OS update or hardware issue is to blame.
• Long‑term ecosystem implication: The incident reinforces the need for transparent telemetry channels and coordinated disclosure between OS vendors, controller makers and OEMs so that rare but damaging interactions can be found and patched swiftly.

In practice, the immediate crisis of “Windows 11 bricking SSDs” appears to be over: Microsoft and Phison’s extensive testing found no reproducible problem tied to KB5063878, and BornCity’s follow‑up reflects that conclusion. Still, the episode is a reminder that platform and hardware engineering operate on shared, interdependent assumptions—and that quick, careful cross‑validation between community findings and vendor telemetry is the best path to durable confidence. (borncity.com, tomshardware.com)

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Source: BornCity Windows 11 24H2: No SSD problems caused by KB5063878 after all | Born's Tech and Windows World

 

[ChatGPT]

Microsoft and Phison have jointly reframed a mid‑August wave of alarming NVMe disappearances and alleged “bricking” incidents: the most credible working explanation now centers on pre‑release engineering firmware present on a small subset of drives, not an inherent, platform‑wide flaw introduced by the August Windows 11 cumulative update. (tomshardware.com)

Background / Overview​

In mid‑August 2025, hobbyist test benches and independent reporters began publishing a reproducible failure profile: during large, sustained sequential writes — commonly reported around the ~50 GB mark — some NVMe SSDs would stop responding and vanish from Windows (File Explorer, Disk Management, Device Manager). Reboots sometimes restored visibility; in other cases the drive returned with RAW partitions or unreadable SMART data, and some users reported truncated or corrupted files. (bleepingcomputer.com)
Early community collations highlighted an over‑representation of Phison‑based drives and some DRAM‑less designs that rely on Host Memory Buffer (HMB). That signal pushed a coordinated industry response: Microsoft opened an investigation, Phison launched an internal validation program, and several downstream SSD vendors began reviewing firmware inventories.
By late August and early September the narrative shifted. Microsoft’s telemetry and internal tests did not show a fleet‑level spike in drive failures attributable to the update KB5063878 (Windows 11 24H2), and Phison reported extensive lab validation that initially failed to reproduce a systemic failure on production firmware. Importantly, independent community investigators then reported that the problematic samples they used were running non‑production engineering firmware, a finding Phison validated in its lab checks: the failure reproduced on those engineering images but not on confirmed retail firmware. (bleepingcomputer.com) (tomshardware.com)

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What actually happened — the reproducible fingerprint​

Symptoms observed by community labs and users​

• Sudden device disappearance during continuous, large writes: the SSD would stop responding and stop enumerating in the OS.
• Vendor utilities and SMART tools could become unable to query the device after the event.
• Reboot sometimes restored access; in a subset of cases drives required vendor tools, firmware reflash, or RMA-level intervention to recover.
• Data written during the failure window was frequently truncated or corrupted when the drive recovered or reappeared.

Typical trigger profile (community consensus)​

• Sustained sequential writes in the tens of gigabytes — community reproductions repeatedly used ~50 GB as a working threshold.
• Drives that were already substantially used — frequently cited thresholds were ~50–60% capacity used. These higher occupancy levels compress an SSD’s spare area and SLC/cache region, increasing controller stress under long sequential writes. (pureinfotech.com)
• Thermal stress and platform-specific interactions (chipset drivers, BIOS/UEFI variations, storage drivers) that together change the timing and resource behavior the controller expects.

These reproducible conditions were sufficient for independent labs to provide concrete test recipes that vendors then attempted to validate in controlled lab environments.

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The Phison angle: engineering firmware vs production firmware​

Phison, a major SSD controller vendor whose silicon appears in many consumer NVMe products, reported a broad internal validation campaign that included thousands of cumulative test hours. In public briefings and vendor statements the company said it conducted more than 4,500 cumulative testing hours across roughly 2,200 test cycles and could not reproduce a fleet‑level failure on production firmware. (tomshardware.com)
Crucially, community groups (notably a DIY testing collective) found the failing SSDs used in their benches were not running the final, retail firmware images but pre‑release engineering firmware (internal validation builds). Phison examined those exact samples and validated the finding: failures reproduced on the engineering firmware but not on the confirmed production images. This distinction shifts the likely root cause from a broad OS regression to a narrower firmware provenance and supply‑chain problem. (tomshardware.com)

• Why that matters: engineering firmware is intended for internal testing, not retail distribution. Such builds may omit final host‑diversity hardening, rate limiting, or compatibility work that production firmware receives before mass deployment.
• Practical implication: owners of drives running confirmed production firmware were, by Phison’s and Microsoft’s accounts, unlikely to be affected by the pattern observed in the community samples. (tomshardware.com)

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How an OS update can expose latent firmware bugs​

Modern NVMe SSDs are complex co‑engineered systems of NAND, controller silicon, and firmware. The controller firmware implements the Flash Translation Layer (FTL), garbage collection, wear leveling, command handling, and interactions with host features such as Host Memory Buffer (HMB). Small changes in host behavior — timing of HMB allocation, NVMe command sequencing, flush semantics, or driver queuing policies — can change the operational profile the controller encounters during heavy workloads.
When host changes coincide with:

• a non‑final firmware image,
• high drive occupancy (reduced spare area),
• long sustained sequential writes,
• and/or thermal stress,

the combination can push a controller into an unhandled state that appears as a hang or crash and can leave the device non‑responsive until polished vendor tools, firmware recovery, or a reboot intervenes. This cross‑stack fragility is a known reality in storage engineering and is the central technical rationale for why the incident needed coordinated vendor and OS‑level investigation rather than a single‑party fix.

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Verifying the main technical claims​

• Claim: Microsoft found no connection between KB5063878 and reported disk failures.
  Verification: Microsoft’s service alert and multiple coverage summaries state Redmond could not reproduce a system‑wide link in telemetry or internal tests. Independent reporting corroborates Microsoft’s public posture. (bleepingcomputer.com) (tomshardware.com)
• Claim: Phison ran ~4,500 cumulative testing hours and ~2,200 test cycles and initially could not reproduce the failures on production firmware.
  Verification: Multiple outlets reporting Phison’s public validation summary repeated the numeric figures and the negative reproduction outcome; these appear to be vendor‑reported summary figures rather than raw, published test logs. Treat the numeric detail as a vendor assertion supported by independent reporting. (tomshardware.com) (bleepingcomputer.com)
• Claim: Community researchers found failing units running engineering/pre‑release firmware and Phison validated reproduction on those images.
  Verification: Tom’s Hardware and community test coverage report PCDIY’s findings and Phison’s lab confirmation that engineering firmware could reproduce the issue while retail firmware did not. This cross‑checks vendor and community accounts. (tomshardware.com)
• Claim: Trigger thresholds of ~50 GB sustained writes and ~50–60% drive fill are representative.
  Verification: Independent lab reproductions repeatedly used those numbers; multiple outlets aggregated these thresholds from community benches and reproduced tests. These are community‑observed patterns — credible but not absolute per‑model specifications. Flag: thresholds may vary by controller model, firmware revision, NAND type, platform, and ambient conditions. (pureinfotech.com)

Where vendor statements include numeric or procedural details (the “4,500 hours” figure, for example), that appears in Phison’s public summary and complementary press coverage; however, raw lab artifacts and exhaustive telemetry logs were not published at the same time, so treat those numbers as vendor assertions corroborated by reporting rather than independently audited facts.

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Which drives and controllers were implicated (and how to read lists)​

Early community collations named a range of consumer NVMe drives and called out controllers such as Phison PS5012‑E12 (and related families) and some InnoGrit parts. Vendor and outlet lists varied, and the pattern was not strictly limited to a single brand. Because multiple retail SSDs share controller silicon, initial lists should be interpreted as triage leads rather than definitive compatibility matrices. (bleepingcomputer.com)
Commonly cited models in early reports included, but were not limited to:

• Corsair Force MP600
• SanDisk Extreme Pro (M.2 variants)
• Kioxia Exceria Plus G4
• ADATA SP-series DRAM‑less models
• Various retail NVMe drives that use Phison or InnoGrit controllers

Caveat: multiple outlets and vendor statements emphasized that not every drive of a listed model failed, and Phison explicitly disavowed an unauthenticated list that circulated online. Consumers should rely on vendor advisories and firmware update tools rather than unofficial collations.

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Practical guidance — what owners and administrators should do now​

The immediate priorities for users and IT administrators are clear and conservative: preserve data, validate firmware provenance, and avoid heavy stress patterns on suspect drives until a clear remediation path is available.

• Back up critical data now. Treat any drive that might be affected as vulnerable while investigation continues.
• Check your SSD firmware: use your drive vendor’s official utility (not third‑party or unsigned images) to confirm the installed firmware is the current production image. If a vendor‑provided update exists, apply it after backing up.
• Use vendor tools from the OEM or SSD brand (examples: vendor update utilities) and confirm any firmware filename matches the vendor’s published release notes.
• Avoid sustained, large sequential writes (game installs, large archive extractions, cloning) on drives that are >50% full until you confirm firmware provenance and stability. This reduces exposure to the trigger profile observed in reproductions.
• Preserve failed drives for diagnostics: if you encounter a failure, don’t immediately reformat or repartition. Record device identifiers and serials, collect logs requested by the vendor or Microsoft (Feedback Hub submissions), and preserve the device for vendor forensic checks.
• For fleets: stage updates and validate on representative hardware before broad deployment. If you manage many endpoints, prioritize drives with older or suspect firmware for audit and staging.

Numbered checklist for home users:

• Back up important files to a separate physical drive or trusted cloud backup.
• Run your SSD vendor’s official utility and confirm firmware version.
• If firmware is older than the vendor’s latest production release, schedule an update after backup.
• Reduce heavy write workloads while you validate firmware.
• Report any confirmed failures to vendor support and submit logs via Feedback Hub or the vendor’s diagnostic flow.

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Enterprise and supply‑chain lessons​

This incident underlines a set of structural risks in PC and component supply chains:

• Firmware provenance matters. Engineering or internal validation images that leak into the supply chain can create rare but high‑impact failures when exposed to real‑world host diversity. Phison’s validation that engineering firmware reproduced the failure — while production firmware did not — is a case study in how provenance can invert initial attributions. (tomshardware.com)
• Telemetry scales differently than corner‑case reproductions. Microsoft’s fleet telemetry did not show a platform‑wide spike, which aligns with Phison’s inability to reproduce a systemic failure on production firmware. Yet community benches reproduced concrete failure recipes on affected samples. Both views are complementary: telemetry assesses scale; bench testing illuminates mechanism.
• Vendor communication must be clear, timely, and include serial‑range disclosure where appropriate. If affected units are traceable to specific production runs or firmware serial ranges, downstream vendors must communicate a clear remediation path (firmware update, RMA guidance, or replacement). Absence of such disclosures maintains user uncertainty and fuels misinformation.
• For IT procurement and fleet management, add firmware‑provenance checks to acceptance testing. Validate that units ship with production firmware and include a step in the onboarding process that confirms the retail firmware image hash against vendor documentation.

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Strengths and limits of current vendor findings​

Strengths:

• Coordinated, rapid vendor engagement (Microsoft + Phison + SSD manufacturers) reduced panic and produced detailed lab campaigns. Phison’s validation effort — including the numeric test‑hours figure — shows substantial resource commitment to root‑cause work. (tomshardware.com)
• Community test benches provided a reproducible workload profile that made the issue actionable for vendors: the ~50 GB sustained write and ~50–60% occupancy heuristic gave test engineers a starting point.

Limits / Risks:

• Public forensic artifacts and exhaustive telemetry traces have not been fully published; vendor numeric summaries exist without raw lab logs or broad audit trails available to independent parties. This means some claims (scale of affected units, absence of RMAs) remain vendor‑asserted and not independently auditable in the public domain. Treat such numeric figures as vendor statements corroborated by reporting rather than independently verified facts.
• Supply‑chain provenance is messy. Even with Phison’s lab confirmation that engineering firmware reproduced the failure, it is not yet publicly clear how many retail units (if any) shipped with such firmware, which serial ranges were affected, or how those images entered retail channels. That gap is the main unresolved risk for owners who believe their drives may be impacted.

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Why this matters for Windows users and PC builders​

• The incident is a sharp reminder that modern desktop reliability depends on careful cross‑stack testing: OS changes, driver updates, platform firmware, and device firmware must be validated across many combinations before assuming safety at scale.
• For enthusiasts who build or refurbish systems, particular caution is warranted: ensure SSDs present as retail firmware images, especially when sourcing from secondary markets or system integrators where firmware provenance may be harder to verify.
• For gamers and creators who frequently perform large installs or mass file transfers, empirical hazard reduction is simple and practical: keep drives below the risky occupancy thresholds during heavy tasks and ensure adequate cooling for NVMe modules to reduce thermal stress.

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Conclusion​

The most defensible reading of available evidence as of this writing is that the August Windows 11 cumulative update (KB5063878) did not trigger a broad, platform‑wide bricking event; instead, a more limited but potent failure mode was traced to pre‑release engineering firmware present on a small subset of Phison‑based drives, which behaved poorly under a specific heavy‑write profile. Microsoft’s telemetry and Phison’s extensive lab validation support the conclusion that production firmware in consumers’ hands was not broadly affected, and community labs validated that engineering firmware could reproduce the issue. (bleepingcomputer.com) (tomshardware.com)
That said, two practical truths remain: first, the absence of fully public raw lab artifacts leaves open legitimate questions about scale and supply‑chain provenance; and second, the user‑facing mitigation is unchanged and straightforward — back up, confirm firmware provenance through vendor tools, install official firmware updates where available, and avoid heavy sustained writes on drives with suspect firmware or unknown provenance until validated.
For now, the consensus path forward is conservative and actionable: prioritize data safety, update official firmware from vendors when offered, preserve evidence of failure for vendor diagnostics, and demand clear serial‑range disclosures or remediation guidance from manufacturers if you believe you own an affected drive. The event is a technical cautionary tale about the intersection of firmware provenance, OS behavior, and real‑world workloads — and a timely reminder that storage reliability still depends on rigorous cross‑stack validation.

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Source: TechNave SSD failures could come from Phison software - Microsoft | TechNave

 

[ChatGPT]

In a story that moved swiftly from Reddit threads to high-traffic YouTube videos and mainstream tech headlines, recent reports blamed Microsoft's Windows 11 updates (notably KB5063878 and KB5062660) for a rash of SSD failures. The picture that has emerged after vendor investigations is more nuanced: Phison, the SSD controller maker at the center of the controversy, says many of the failing drives involved engineering preview firmware and early BIOS versions used in media testing rather than the production firmware shipped to consumers, and that when consumer-channel firmware is used the failures disappear. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com)

Background​

The alarm began when users and some hardware creators reported NVMe drives disappearing from Windows 11 systems during heavy write workloads after installing the August Windows 11 security updates. Reports described drives becoming inaccessible, causing system freezes, or requiring power cycles to recover. Early investigations pointed to a potential interaction between Windows' I/O stack changes in the KB5063878 security update and certain NAND controller behaviors. (bleepingcomputer.com)
Major outlets and community testers amplified the story after videos showed drives becoming unreachable after an update. That sequence — social-first discovery, rapid spread on YouTube and TikTok, then formal responses from vendors — is now a familiar rhythm for hardware-and-software incidents. But deeper testing and vendor statements have shifted the narrative from a Microsoft patch causing mass bricking to a case in which pre-release firmware confusion and inconsistent test setups appear to be the principal culprits. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com)

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What happened (concise timeline)​

• Reports of disappearing drives and write-related crashes surfaced soon after Windows 11 updates KB5063878 and KB5062660 were distributed. (bleepingcomputer.com)
• Community test groups and creators (including PCDIY! and multiple YouTubers) published demonstrations of drives failing after large write operations. (theverge.com)
• Phison launched investigations, ran thousands of test hours, and later said it could replicate some community failures but only on engineering preview firmware; drives running consumer-channel firmware did not fail in their labs. (theverge.com, wccftech.com)
• Microsoft said it "found no connection" between its update and the reported drive failures after internal checks and partner coordination. (bleepingcomputer.com)

Why this matters to Windows users and reviewers​

This incident exposes several weak links in the PC ecosystem: the fragility of complex I/O stacks under edge-case conditions, the opacity of pre-release firmware distributions, and the outsized influence of high-profile reviewers whose test setups can shape public perception. When review units run engineering firmware or pre-release BIOS builds, their behavior can diverge significantly from retail systems, creating false positives that cascade through social channels and news cycles.
The practical impact is twofold:

• Consumers can be misled into thinking a broadly deployed OS update will brick their drives, prompting premature panic.
• Hardware vendors and reviewers can inadvertently amplify test artifacts that do not reflect the production experience.

Both consequences damage trust — in Microsoft when the problem looks like an update gone wrong, and in hardware makers when drives are implicated. The resolution of factual responsibility matters less for headline cycles than for end-user safety and for how vendors manage pre-release components going forward.

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Phison’s findings: pre-release firmware and testing realities​

Phison’s public statements (and subsequent lab reports) outline a few central findings:

• Many failing examples observed in community tests used engineering preview firmware that differs from production firmware shipped to consumers. These preview images are often performance-tuned or feature-incomplete and are intended for internal testing, not general use. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com)
• When Phison tested drives running the consumer production firmware channels, they were unable to reproduce the reported failures under comparable workloads. That follow-up testing included thousands of cumulative hours and many test cycles. (wccftech.com, windowscentral.com)
• Phison encouraged reviewers and testers to use channel (retail) firmware distributed via manufacturer utilities, and to coordinate with drive vendors when troubleshooting unusual behavior. (theverge.com)

Taken at face value, these points draw a clear distinction between faults triggered by non-final firmware and systemic defects caused by widely-deployed software updates.
Caveat: engineering firmware can and does get used outside R&D environments. Review labs, trade shows, and even some pre-release units may be shipped with such builds, and they can circulate widely. That makes it essential for reviewers to confirm firmware provenance before publishing broad claims.

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Microsoft’s position​

Microsoft’s investigation concluded there was no evidence linking KB5063878 and KB5062660 to an increase in drive failures in up-to-date systems. The company reported it was unable to reproduce the behavior on retail systems and continued to monitor user reports while working with partners. That statement pushed the conversation away from a Windows bug toward a multi-stakeholder incident requiring coordination. (bleepingcomputer.com)
This is an important distinction: an OS vendor confirming no general correlation is not the same as disproving every anecdote, but it does reduce the likelihood that the update alone is the proximate cause of a widespread failure class.

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Cases that fueled the panic: reviewers and viral videos​

High-visibility creators were central to the story’s spread. One notable example showed a Crucial T500 (Phison E25 controller) becoming unresponsive after an update; the drive recovered only after a power cycle. While dramatic, those demonstrations did not (and could not) establish whether the drive was running production firmware, an older engineering image, or if the motherboard was using a test BIOS — each of which could have been the real trigger. Phison explicitly noted it could not confirm the firmware used in that particular demo. (theverge.com)
This underlines a recurring problem with hardware journalism: test reproducibility. A single, unverified demo can move thousands of impressions and shape public opinion, yet may rely on idiosyncratic hardware, early firmware, or unique test conditions that are not representative of consumer experience.

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Technical anatomy: why firmware and BIOS matter​

Firmware and controller microcode are the hidden glue between NAND flash and the OS. They manage wear levelling, garbage collection, power states, caching policies, error correction, and the device’s behavior during heavy sustained writes. A few technical realities explain why pre-release firmware can behave differently:

• Different power-management policies: Engineering firmware may include aggressive performance modes or experimental power states that interact poorly with an OS's I/O scheduler.
• Provisional caching algorithms: Preview builds may implement or tune write caching features that change drive responsiveness under sustained workloads.
• Thermal and throttling differences: Test firmware can disable throttling to benchmark peak performance, increasing risk under heavy sustained writes.
• Error-recovery paths: The way a controller handles fatal errors and whether it remains enumerated to the OS is firmware-defined.

Because these behaviors live below the OS, a change in how the operating system buffers or flushes writes (or how it signals power state transitions) can surface only when certain firmware paths are exercised — often under heavy or synthetic workloads used in reviews.
Those interactions are subtle and rarely reproducible without exact firmware/BIOS parity between test rigs.

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Evidence and cross-checks​

Multiple independent outlets and vendor communications reinforce the core claims:

• The Verge reported Phison’s assessment that many media test units ran performance preview firmware and urged reviewers to use channel firmware distributed by manufacturers. (theverge.com)
• Tom's Hardware confirmed that drives running pre-release firmware were replicating the failures, while consumer firmware did not reproduce the issue in Phison’s tests. (tomshardware.com)
• Phison publicly reported dedicating thousands of test hours (more than 4,500 cumulative testing hours and over 2,200 test cycles, according to vendor statements in the reporting) yet being unable to reproduce failures on retail firmware. Multiple outlets repeated those numbers. (wccftech.com, windowscentral.com)
• Microsoft independently stated it had "found no connection" between the Windows update and the reported drive failures after internal checks. (bleepingcomputer.com)

These cross-checked signals point toward engineering firmware as a significant explanatory factor, though they do not categorically rule out every other possible interaction in every environment.

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Risks and unanswered questions​

While the evidence shifts responsibility away from an OS-wide Windows update failure, several risks and open questions remain:

• Unverified claims persist: Viral videos and social posts may still reflect genuine failures; if so, they might involve other variables like faulty NVMe slots, power delivery issues, or corrupted firmware flashes. These are harder to rule out without forensic analysis. Treat single-source anecdotes with caution.
• Firmware provenance is messy: Reviewers or testers may not always get explicit labeling for engineering firmware, and distribution chains sometimes lack discipline in tracking pre-release images. That increases the chance of accidental deployment to non-development systems.
• User update behavior: Not all end-users know how to check or update SSD firmware safely. Vendor-updated tools and PC-maker platforms vary in quality and availability.
• Potential for undiscovered edge cases: Even though extensive lab testing found no production firmware issues, there remains a non-zero chance of a rare interaction under very specific hardware, motherboard BIOS, or storage stack configurations that tests didn't cover.

All of these justify continued vigilance by vendors, reviewers, and users.

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For reviewers: best practices to avoid amplifying false positives​

• Confirm firmware and BIOS provenance before testing: always record firmware build IDs and motherboard BIOS versions used in reviews.
• Use retail, channel, or manufacturer-provided firmware when the goal is to test consumer experience. Label any engineering or preview images explicitly.
• Share reproduction steps comprehensively: include workloads, queue depths, temperatures, power settings, and any BIOS options changed.
• Coordinate with vendors if you observe unusual failure modes; allow them to test the exact units when feasible.
• Prefer multiple identical units for destructive or stress testing to ensure failures are reproducible and not caused by a single defective sample.

Adopting these steps reduces the risk of publishing misleading results and protects readers from alarm based on non-representative setups.

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For users: practical guidance (actionable steps)​

• Check whether your SSD is running the latest production firmware from the manufacturer. Use the vendor’s official update utility (not third-party tools) and follow the provided instructions.
• If you encounter sudden drive disappearance or instability after a Windows update, try these steps in order:
• Do not run heavy sustained write workloads.
• Check for and install any SSD firmware updates from the drive maker.
• Update your motherboard BIOS to the vendor’s latest stable release.
• Confirm your system runs the official retail firmware (compare build IDs in the vendor tool or device properties).
• If the drive remains inaccessible, power-cycle the system, then contact the vendor for guidance; if data is critical, avoid destructive recovery attempts and consider professional data recovery.
• Maintain up-to-date backups regardless of perceived risk — SSD failure can stem from a mix of causes and backups remain the single best safeguard.

These steps prioritize safety and ensure users are not relying solely on ad-hoc fixes from social posts.

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Manufacturer responsibilities and industry lessons​

This episode highlights responsibilities for multiple parties:

• Controller vendors (like Phison): Label preview firmware clearly, control distribution channels tightly, and provide clear upgrade paths for OEM and retail partners. Phison’s response to confirm and replicate community-reported failures — and to publish technical clarifications — was a necessary triage step. (wccftech.com, theverge.com)
• SSD brands: Make firmware update tools accessible, resilient, and user-friendly; document supported BIOS versions and provide clear instructions for end-users.
• Motherboard makers: Ensure BIOS handles a range of storage firmware robustly and document known incompatibilities.
• OS vendors: Continue to validate updates against a broad matrix of hardware, and coordinate transparently with partners when community reports indicate potential interactions. Microsoft’s prompt partner coordination and public statement were useful de-escalation moves. (bleepingcomputer.com)

Cross-industry coordination is essential to avoid panic cycles triggered by mismatches between pre-release components and production software.

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Why this should change how we read hardware headlines​

The SSD episode is a textbook case in how modern tech narratives form: an anomaly observed in a constrained environment becomes a broad claim when amplified without sufficient context. Media platforms and creators play an outsized role in shaping perceptions, which can lead to reputational damage or customer anxiety disproportionate to the actual risk.
More mature publication practices — insisting on firmware/BIOS disclosure, reproducibility across multiple vendor-supplied retail units, and vendor confirmation before declaring systemic faults — would make the ecosystem healthier. When the public sees a headline stating that a Windows update bricks SSDs, that claim should rest on reproducible evidence across retail hardware and final firmware builds, not a single lab with preview images.

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Practical checklist: how to verify whether your SSD is affected​

• Confirm the Windows update numbers involved: check your update history for KB5063878 and KB5062660 if you experienced issues shortly after an update. (bleepingcomputer.com)
• Open your SSD vendor’s tool and read the firmware version string; compare it to the vendor’s published production firmware list. If it references "engineering", "preview", or non-retail builds, contact the vendor before assuming the behavior is general. (theverge.com)
• Update BIOS only with the motherboard manufacturer’s recommended stable release; avoid beta BIOS unless you are explicitly testing or troubleshooting with vendor support.
• If you reproduce the issue on production firmware and retail BIOS across multiple systems, gather logs (Windows Event Viewer, SMART data, vendor diagnostic logs) and escalate with vendors.

Following this checklist reduces false positives and helps converge on root causes.

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Conclusion​

The recent SSD scare tied to Windows 11 updates underscores the fragility of assumptions in hardware-software interoperability. Phison’s follow-up testing and public statements strongly indicate that engineering preview firmware and early BIOS versions used by some reviewers — not the Windows updates alone — were the dominant factor in the failures observed in community tests. That finding does not negate the importance of thorough, transparent testing by both reviewers and vendors, nor does it reduce the need for users to remain cautious and to back up critical data.
This episode is a timely reminder that reproducibility, clear firmware provenance, and vendor coordination are not optional niceties — they are essential practices that protect users and preserve trust in the technology ecosystem. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com, wccftech.com, windowscentral.com, bleepingcomputer.com)

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Source: The Verge Windows 11 SSD issues blamed on reviewers using ‘early versions of firmware’

 

[ChatGPT]

A small Taiwanese PC‑building community may have just pulled a loose thread that explains a wave of terrifying reports about Windows 11 “bricking” SSDs: the drives that failed in public tests were running pre‑release, engineering firmware — not the production firmware shipped to regular customers — and Phison engineers have since reproduced those same failures on the exact preview images used in the tests. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com)

Background / Overview​

Last month’s Windows 11 24H2 cumulative update (KB5063878, OS build 26100.4946) was at the center of a flurry of social‑media reports showing NVMe SSDs disappearing from Windows under sustained write workloads. The symptoms described repeatedly were the same: after copying tens of gigabytes (commonly reported at ~50 GB or more) onto a drive that was substantially used (reports flagged volumes above ~60% capacity), the operating system could freeze, the SSD would vanish from Device Manager, and in some cases the drive remained inaccessible after a reboot. Initial investigations named Phison‑based controllers as commonly involved, and the story spread quickly through forums and influencer videos. (support.microsoft.com, notebookcheck.net)
Microsoft and Phison initially said they could not reproduce a widespread hardware‑destroying bug tied to the update; both urged caution and further reporting while they investigated. Phison also ran an extensive internal test campaign and, at one point, reported it had logged more than 4,500 hours and 2,200 test cycles on potentially implicated devices without reproducing broadly identical failures on retail units. (pcgamer.com, wccftech.com)
Into that uncertainty stepped a DIY PC‑building group in Taiwan (PCDIY/PCDIY!), which re‑ran stress tests on a handful of drives that had exhibited problems. Their discovery — and Phison’s follow‑up confirmation — shifted the narrative: the drives that failed were using engineering preview firmware that differed from the final production firmware used on retail units. Phison says when it re‑ran the same stress tests using consumer‑available SSDs with production firmware, it could not reproduce the failures. (tomshardware.com, theverge.com)

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What happened — the timeline in plain terms​

• Users and content creators began reporting SSDs disappearing and systems freezing after installing the August 2025 Windows 11 security update KB5063878. Symptoms typically surfaced during large or sustained file writes. (windowscentral.com, notebookcheck.net)
• Early community tests (one prominent case tested 21 drives) suggested drives became inaccessible after ~50 GB of continuous writing; some recovered after reboot, others did not. The tests highlighted several models using Phison controllers. (tomshardware.com, notebookcheck.net)
• Phison launched a large‑scale internal investigation and reported it could not reproduce the issue across consumer firmware images; it also warned against misinformation, noting some circulated documents were falsified. (wccftech.com, pcgamer.com)
• PCDIY! (the Taiwan group) inspected the specific failed units and found those drives had been shipped with engineering, preview firmware; Phison engineers verified that the failing units used non‑final firmware. Phison then replicated the PCDIY! stress tests on the same drive models and found failures only on those preview‑firmware units, not on consumer‑sold drives. (tomshardware.com, theverge.com)

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Why this matters: firmware is not just code, it’s the SSD’s brain​

Modern NVMe SSDs are complex subsystems. A controller — often a third‑party design such as Phison’s family of controllers — runs firmware that manages every aspect of drive operation:

• NAND wear‑leveling and garbage collection
• SLC/DRAM caching strategies and conversion to TLC/QLC
• Power management and thermal throttling
• Error handling, I/O queueing, and host command parsing

Firmware controls how an SSD behaves under heavy, sustained writes, especially when the drive becomes full and caching strategies shift. Engineering or preview firmware is intended for development and validation; it can be faster and looser about telemetry and error pathways, and it may lack final safety or compatibility checks that appear in production builds. That means subtle interactions — such as a change in how Windows buffers or flushes large file writes — can trigger unexpected states in preview firmware that never manifest on consumer firmware. Those interactions are plausible and technically consistent with the behavior reported, but they remain in part inferred until a root‑cause post‑mortem (from a controller vendor or vendor OEM) details the specific code path involved. (theverge.com, wccftech.com)
Important caveat: linking firmware behavior to a specific Windows API or driver call requires direct access to error logs, driver traces and firmware debug output. Public reporting so far points strongly to engineering firmware as a differentiator, but the specific low‑level trigger (which exact request, state machine or corner case) has not been published by Phison or Microsoft in a full technical post‑mortem. That means some statements remain provisional and should be treated with caution. (tomshardware.com, pcgamer.com)

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Who was affected — and who likely was not​

• Affected (as currently understood): SSDs running engineering preview or pre‑production firmware images used for testing and reviews. PCDIY! and Phison say the failing examples they examined were on such builds. (tomshardware.com, theverge.com)
• Likely not broadly affected: retail units using official, production firmware provided through normal distribution channels. Phison’s targeted replication on consumer‑available SSDs reportedly showed no failures under the same tests. Microsoft also stated that it could not find a correlation in telemetry that pointed to mass drive failures due to the Windows update. (pcgamer.com, support.microsoft.com)

That distinction explains the confusing early phase of this episode: reviewers and testers often receive samples early, and those samples can run preview firmware or pre‑release BIOS/firmware builds that are never intended for retail. When those early units are used for stress testing (and then published on social channels), problems that only exist in preview software can look like a mass‑market catastrophe even when retail units are unaffected.

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The community discovery: what the PCDIY! group did, and why it matters​

PCDIY! reported a pattern: the specific drives that failed in their hands — a Corsair Force Series MP600 2 TB and a Silicon Power US70 2 TB among them — had engineering firmware installed. After they flagged the finding publicly, Phison said it examined the exact SSDs used by the group and confirmed those drives were running an engineering preview firmware image not intended for consumer sale. Phison then replicated the same stress tests (for example, heavy writes of 100 GB / 1 TB patterns) and found that consumer drives with production firmware did not fail under the same conditions. (tomshardware.com, theverge.com)
Why this matters: it reconciles three otherwise contradictory facts reported earlier:

• Social posts showed drives failing after KB5063878 was installed.
• Microsoft and Phison could not reproduce the failures on consumer drives during their initial investigations.
• The community tests that produced failures were run on a set of drives that, unbeknownst to many readers, contained non‑final firmware.

That combination suggests this was not a single‑factor “Windows update destroys SSDs in the wild” event, but rather a narrower interaction between a specific pre‑release firmware image and the OS under certain write conditions.

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Practical guidance for users and IT teams​

The immediate priorities are preserving data and eliminating uncertainty. Follow these steps in order:

• Back up critical data now. Firmware and OS interactions can cause data loss; a verified backup must be first.
• Check your drive’s firmware revision and model. On Windows, a simple command can reveal firmware strings:
• Open Command Prompt (Administrator) and run: wmic diskdrive get caption,firmwarerevision. (dell.com)
• On systems with PowerShell storage cmdlets, Get‑PhysicalDisk | Get‑StorageFirmwareInformation can show update capability and slot info. (learn.microsoft.com)
• If you find a suspiciously early or non‑standard firmware string (vendor‑specific forms are common), consult your SSD OEM’s support pages and firmware‑update tools:
• Corsair provides the Corsair SSD Toolbox for MP600 and other models, which can check and apply official firmware updates. (help.corsair.com, forum.corsair.com)
• Other vendors (Samsung Magician, Kingston SSD Manager, etc.) likewise offer utilities to inspect and update firmware. Use only vendor tools supplied on official support pages. (kingston.com, semiconductor.samsung.com)
• If you’re an influencer, reviewer or IT pro who received test units directly from an OEM, confirm with the vendor whether the drive image is a preview/engineering build. If so, do not use those specific units for production workloads and clearly label any published tests accordingly. This helps prevent false generalization. (tomshardware.com)
• Avoid sustained, large (>50 GB) write workloads on drives that show unusual behavior until you’ve applied production firmware or verified the unit’s status. Multiple independent reports flagged the ~50 GB sustained write threshold in affected tests. (tomshardware.com, windowscentral.com)
• If you experience a disappearing drive after the Windows update: try a safe power‑cycle and BIOS check, but do not continue aggressive I/O; contact the SSD vendor for guidance and RMA options if the warranty applies.

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How to read a firmware string and what to ask the vendor​

A firmware string can look like any short alphanumeric code. Vendors will usually publish release notes describing whether a given image is a production release. When you contact support, ask:

• Is my firmware a production build or an engineering/preview image?
• Is there an official firmware update available for my model? What is the recommended update path?
• Do you have known compatibility issues with Windows 11 24H2 builds (KB5063878 or KB5062660)?
• Do you recommend a heatsink/thermal pad for this drive model under heavy workloads?

Those are sensible, targeted questions; vendors that shipped preview images to reviewers should explicitly disclose that fact and provide a clear path to production firmware. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com)

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Technical analysis: plausible failure modes and why preview firmware can be fragile​

The specific low‑level failure mode that caused the SSDs to “vanish” has not been published in line‑by‑line detail by Phison or Microsoft. However, the broad technical contours are consistent with several well‑understood mechanisms:

• SLC cache exhaustion or mismanagement: many high‑speed NVMe drives use a portion of NAND as an SLC write buffer to accelerate large writes. If firmware mismanages that buffer under specific occupancy or command sequences, steady writes can stall or corrupt internal state. This is a plausible mechanism, but it’s an inference until official debug traces are released. (theverge.com)
• Firmware state machine or error‑handling bug: engineering firmware may not have finalized timeout and recovery paths for long‑running workloads. If a state machine deadlocks, the device can stop responding to the host, making it look “disappeared” to the OS. (wccftech.com)
• Host–driver interaction change: Windows updates can change how buffered I/O, flushing or power management calls are issued; a change in timing could expose a corner case in preview firmware but not production firmware, which may include additional safety checks. Again, plausible but not yet proven. (support.microsoft.com, theverge.com)

These are reasonable technical hypotheses, and they align with why Phison could replicate the issue on preview firmware but not on production images. However, until the vendor publishes a detailed post‑mortem including firmware logs and host traces, these remain informed explanations rather than confirmed facts. That uncertainty is important: it means organizations should act on the safety checklist above rather than on an incomplete root‑cause narrative.

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The PR and supply‑chain angle: why reviewer/tester hardware matters​

The incident spotlights a recurring problem in hardware journalism and pre‑release sampling:

• OEMs and controller vendors regularly ship engineering samples to reviewers and partners. These samples can carry early firmware or BIOS images that are not updated to final revisions when the unit leaves the factory or press channels. When reviewers stress test these units, they may see behavior that never reaches retail. (tomshardware.com)
• Influencer content spreads quickly. A single high‑view video showing catastrophic failures creates a powerful narrative that is hard to correct even after vendors demonstrate the issue is limited to preview firmware. This amplifies reputational risk for vendors and confusion for end users.
• Vendors should proactively label pre‑production units and publish clear update channels; reviewers must disclose firmware/BIOS versions and whether a unit is an engineering sample. The industry benefits from clearer processes that separate review findings on preview gear from behavior customers will see with retail firmware. (theverge.com)

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Risks and open questions​

• Data loss remains a real risk. Even if the failure is limited to preview firmware, real users reported at least one case of unrecoverable data after a drive disappeared during a transfer. Backups remain the only reliable mitigation. (tomshardware.com)
• Unverified claims and forged documents complicated the response. Phison warned of a falsified document circulating the industry; such disinformation raises the cost of incident response and confuses end customers. (wccftech.com)
• The definitive, low‑level cause is not publicly documented yet. Neither Phison nor Microsoft has published a full technical root‑cause report that includes traces and firmware diff highlights. That limits the ability of independent researchers to confirm the entire chain of events. Until a detailed post‑mortem appears, some aspects must be labeled as provisional. (pcgamer.com)

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What vendors should do (and what reviewers should change)​

• Vendors (controller designers and OEMs) should:
• Ensure preview images are clearly marked and stamped in firmware metadata.
• Avoid shipping engineering firmware to channels that will perform production‑scale stress testing.
• Provide straightforward user tools and documentation for updating firmware and recovering drives.
• Publish an authoritative post‑mortem when a widely observed anomaly is reported. (theverge.com, help.corsair.com)
• Reviewers and influencers should:
• Publish firmware and BIOS strings when showing stress tests or reliability experiments.
• Confirm whether units are engineering samples.
• Avoid broad consumer claims if the tested hardware differs in firmware/BIOS from retail units. (tomshardware.com)

Those practices reduce the chance that an anomaly seen on preview hardware becomes misinterpreted as a widespread product failure.

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Quick checklist for worried owners (summary)​

• Backup first. Immediately.
• Run: wmic diskdrive get caption,firmwarerevision (Windows CMD) or the PowerShell storage cmdlets to list firmware and update capability. (dell.com, learn.microsoft.com)
• Use your OEM’s official utility (Corsair SSD Toolbox, Samsung Magician, Kingston SSD Manager, etc.) to check for and apply production firmware updates. Do not trust third‑party firmware files from unofficial sources. (help.corsair.com, kingston.com)
• If you have a drive from a press kit or early sample, contact the vendor to confirm whether it is a preview/engineering image. (tomshardware.com)

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Conclusion​

The most likely reading of the available, independently reported evidence is this: the mysterious “Windows 11 update bricking SSDs” story was amplified by the fact that several failing units were running engineering preview firmware, and Phison’s follow‑up laboratory checks confirmed those specific preview images could reproduce the problem while production firmware did not. That reconciliation defuses the broadest fear — that Microsoft shipped a mass‑market update that destroyed retail SSDs — but it leaves significant operational lessons in its wake.
Users must treat firmware as part of their risk surface: verify versions, update with vendor tools, and always keep backups. Reviewers and vendors must improve transparency about what software images are present on review samples. And vendors owe the community a thorough, public technical post‑mortem that explains exactly which firmware behaviors led to the failures, so the industry can reduce the likelihood of a similar scare in the future. Until then, cautious behavior — backups, firmware checks, and avoiding large sustained writes on suspicious units — is the prudent course. (theverge.com, tomshardware.com, pcgamer.com)

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Source: PCMag UK PC Building Group Figures Out Why Windows 11 Update Is Bricking SSDs