Microsoft finally breaks the silence about that nasty Windows 11 SSD bug, and it’s good news for all

Things got a little scary with the new Windows 11 update. First, Microsoft stated that it was investigating reports that the newest update would render SSDs undetectable if attempting to move at least 50GB of data onto a drive with over 60% of its storage capacity used. This would potentially cause data loss or even cause the drive to brick itself. There was just one problem; while there were a handful of claims, it hadn’t seen anyone else come forward with the same bug. So, it made a call asking people to tell the company if they’ve ever encountered the bug.

While we waited to hear Microsoft’s verdict, one of the vendors that created the supposedly affected SSDs, Phison, performed over 4,500 hours of tests and found no faults. Now, Microsoft has finally given its verdict, and it, too, is finding zero evidence that the bug is related to Windows 11’s updates. Phew.

Microsoft states that Windows 11’s latest update does not brick SSDs

As spotted by Bleeping Computer, Microsoft issued a service alert revealing the results of its investigation. Fortunately, it had excellent news for both SSD manufacturers and Windows 11 users, as the company failed to reproduce the bug in-house:

“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. As always, we continue to monitor feedback after the release of every Windows update, and will investigate any future reports.”

So, if the bug isn’t widespread, the question remains: what caused these investigations to happen in the first place? The original claims were made by one person on X, who stated that they had conducted thorough testing with SSDs and reported their findings. If we’re assuming that the poster was being legitimate and they were, in fact, encountering issues with their drives, it was likely an issue with their setup rather than with Windows 11. Either way, it’s still good to hear that the bug seems to be extremely rare at the very least.

If your own SSD has been around for a while and you’re worried about data loss, don’t worry. There are plenty of ways to get a rough idea as to how your SSD is faring and if you need to replace it soon. Be sure to read about how to check your SSD health on a Windows PC and the SMART attributes you should actually care about. And if things look dire, consider the best SSDs of 2025 for a replacement.