Windows Update KB5063878 Can Cause an Issue with your SSD

[JSWolf]

https://www.windowscentral.com/micro...sds-what-to-do

What you need to know about storage issues with Windows 11 update KB5063878

As Nekorusukii explains in a summary of their testing, drives go missing in Windows 11 with SMART data unreadable. You might be able to access the buffered tree, but from there, files cannot be read.

This issue seems to occur when writing large chunks of data to certain drives; it's especially prone to occur if the file size is higher than 50GB and if the drive is more than 60% full. Worse, it appears to happen on SSDs and HDDs.

Should you encounter this issue, a system reboot might recover the drive's working state, but it can recur should you put the drive under the same strain again.

Nekorusukii tested 21 SSDs with a mix of Samsung, WD, Seagate, Corsair, SK hynix, Crucial, Solidigm, ADATA, HP, XPG, and Hanye hardware. From these results, they suspect that it's a Phison NAND controller that's most likely to cause the problem.

The suggested solution is to uninstall KB5063878 and set Windows Update to not update for 5 weeks. If a patch comes out that fixes the issue, you can always re-enable Windows update to get updates soon if that happens.

P.S. It's also said that Update KB5062660 is part of the problem. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/new...failure-issues

[Sirtel]

Hmm. This update was installed on my main laptop a week ago, and my SSD is about 90% full. So far no issues. True, almost all my files are rather small.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Hmm. This update was installed on my main laptop a week ago, and my SSD is about 90% full. So far no issues. True, almost all my files are rather small.

I've backed off these two Windows updates and paused Windows Update.

[jackm8]

Interesting. I just did a fresh 11 install, and neither of the updates were installed.

[Quoth]

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/...covery_broken/

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/...ws_update_ndi/

[nana77]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Hmm. This update was installed on my main laptop a week ago, and my SSD is about 90% full. So far no issues. True, almost all my files are rather small.

Hi, sorry beacause I don't want to look silly, but just as a suggestion usually keeping a 15-20% of free space on a SSD improves the performance, and reduces its wearing (in a lightweight use cases; even 35% on more demanding tasks).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_l..._wear_leveling

A flash memory storage system with no wear leveling will not last very long if data is written to the flash. Without wear leveling, the underlying flash controller must permanently assign the logical addresses from the operating system (OS) to the physical addresses of the flash memory. This means that every write to a previously written block must first be read, erased, modified, and re-written to the same location. This approach is very time-consuming and frequently written locations will wear out quickly, while other locations will not be used at all. Once a few blocks reach their end of life, such a device becomes inoperable.

The efficiency of the algorithm that ensures every block is written an equal number of times to all other blocks as evenly as possible

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_amplification
(This was OT)

[JSWolf]

Has anyone besides me uninstalled these updates?

[DNSB]

Nope. I tried a test writing a 100GB file to both my C: and D: drives and no issues were noted. Perhaps Samsung drives are not susceptible to the issue since they do not use Phison or InnoGrit controllers?

[nana77]

Not sure if it automatically does checks, but there is a list of supported processors for each version's updates: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...tel-processors
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...amd-processors

[haertig]

I wonder if this Windows update flaw actually corrupts the SSD/HDD itself or if Windows just can't access the SSD/HDD successfully? i.e., Would the "corrupted" disk still be readable in Linux? If so, I would keep a bootable Linux thumbdrive on hand to temporarily boot your Windows computer from if you need access to the "corrupted" disks files. It's a good idea to have a Linux thumbdrive on hand in any case, as a recovery path for many problems.

If this bug actually does corrupt the SSD/HDD, that would be a very bad outcome. Say you decide to backup your files for safety (everyone should already be doing this) - this bug could corrupt your backups too. Even more likely if your backup software compresses backups into large files, as many backup solutions do.

Ay, Chihuahua! - I would hang on to any backups you have from prior to these Windows updates being applied to your computers. Disconnect the drive(s) holding those backups as well. Don't let Windows touch them at all until this is verified resolved. Which sounds like it might be a ways off, since Microsoft says they can't reproduce the problem yet. "I haven't had any problems yet" is very slippery ground to stake your computer's file's safety on.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Nope. I tried a test writing a 100GB file to both my C: and D: drives and no issues were noted. Perhaps Samsung drives are not susceptible to the issue since they do not use Phison or InnoGrit controllers?

My laptop is using a Samsung SSD drive. The Mini-PC has a Crucial P3 Plus SSD.

The Crucial does have a Phison controller. So the updates have to be removed.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by haertig

I wonder if this Windows update flaw actually corrupts the SSD/HDD itself or if Windows just can't access the SSD/HDD successfully? i.e., Would the "corrupted" disk still be readable in Linux? If so, I would keep a bootable Linux thumbdrive on hand to temporarily boot your Windows computer from if you need access to the "corrupted" disks files. It's a good idea to have a Linux thumbdrive on hand in any case, as a recovery path for many problems.

If this bug actually does corrupt the SSD/HDD, that would be a very bad outcome. Say you decide to backup your files for safety (everyone should already be doing this) - this bug could corrupt your backups too. Even more likely if your backup software compresses backups into large files, as many backup solutions do.

Ay, Chihuahua! - I would hang on to any backups you have from prior to these Windows updates being applied to your computers. Disconnect the drive(s) holding those backups as well. Don't let Windows touch them at all until this is verified resolved. Which sounds like it might be a ways off, since Microsoft says they can't reproduce the problem yet. "I haven't had any problems yet" is very slippery ground to stake your computer's file's safety on.

That's why I've uninstalled these updates and paused Windows Update. I'm not taking any chances.

[haertig]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That's why I've uninstalled these updates and paused Windows Update. I'm not taking any chances.

All my computers are Linux. But my wife runs Windows. She just paused all Windows updates. I need to check and see if the two problem updates have already been installed on her computer. I'm not a Windows guy, so I'll have to research how you go about determining what updates have been applied to that OS. I don't know how to do that check at present. I imagine a Google search will tell me how.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by haertig

All my computers are Linux. But my wife runs Windows. She just paused all Windows updates. I need to check and see if the two problem updates have already been installed on her computer. I'm not a Windows guy, so I'll have to research how you go about determining what updates have been applied to that OS. I don't know how to do that check at present. I imagine a Google search will tell me how.

You just look at the update history in the settings.

[haertig]

It was easy to find the updates installed on Windows. This recent problem update has indeed already been installed on my wife's computer (a little over a week ago). I thought about uninstalling it. Microsoft of course warns against it. Their reasons are mostly just "Well, you'll lose the updates we just added and you can trust us to only install good updates." Yeah, right. However, they did mention at the bottom of their list of "why you shouldn't do this" that data loss can occur when uninstalling security updates. This may be a bogus warning scare tactic. Or it may not be.

I thought about my personal setup. My wife's computer is backed up daily, and I keep at least 30 days of individual full backups that I could choose from to restore if needed. These are user files (the important stuff). I do backup the entire OS once a month, but I would reinstall the OS from scratch rather than use one of these image backups except in a dire emergency. Everything is backed up to a Linux server, so those backups are not susceptible to this recent Windows bug. And the Linux server "pulls" the data from my wife's Windows computer, it is not "pushed" from the Windows end. So Windows can't compromise the Linux end. It's not like Windows is writing to a remote Linux disk - Linux is in control of the backup process.

So I should be well set to recover from anything Windows might do to my wife's SSD. I think I'll allow the bad security update to stay in place, for now. I'll follow future information on this bug and I may update my current plan sometime in the future if warranted.

John - Thanks for reporting this. While I'm in good shape here, my kids and some of my friends may not be. I have forwarded your info on to them so they can decide what is needed for their personal setups. I will assist them (make Linux controlled backup space available to them) if needed.