Microsoft’s latest security update for Windows 11 may be causing failures in Solid State Drives (SSDs) during heavy file transfers. Reports from users suggest that continuous transfers of over 50GB can cause drives to vanish from the operating system.
An investigation revealed a potential bug that appears during these large transfers, particularly when the drive is almost full. The issue seems to occur on multiple types of SSDs, including those with Phison NAND controllers, but it’s not exclusive to them.
A series of tests were conducted on 21 drives, and 12 became inaccessible after copying a large game library folder. However, only one 2TB Western Digital drive couldn’t be recovered even after a reboot, indicating that the issue might impact multiple SSD types.
Users have reported similar issues with different manufacturers’ SSDs, including SanDisk Extreme Pro M.2 NVMe. A user deleted an update file to resolve the problem, suggesting the KB5062660 update may be responsible.
While Microsoft and SSD manufacturers haven’t acknowledged the bug yet, users are advised to exercise caution when handling large continuous file transfers on systems running the latest Windows 11 KB5063878 update.
Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/latest-windows-11-security-patch-might-be-breaking-ssds-under-heavy-workloads-users-report-disappearing-drives-following-file-transfers-including-some-that-cannot-be-recovered-after-a-reboot