Phison squashes reports of Windows 11 breaking SSDs — says it was unable to reproduce issues despite 4,500 hours of testing, recommends users deploy heatsinks just in case

Last week, Microsoft pushed a Windows 11 update that was reportedly breaking several SSDs. What was supposed to be a routine "patch Tuesday" turned into a headache for customers and a PR nightmare for manufacturers. Chief among them was Phison, a prolific name in the industry whose controllers are used in drives across multiple applications—both consumer and business. Now, Phison has come forward to essentially deny these reports following internal testing, in a new press release.

In a statement, the company told Tom's Hardware that "... Phison dedicated over 4,500 cumulative testing hours to the drives reported as potentially impacted and conducted more than 2,200 test cycles. We were unable to reproduce the reported issue, and no partners or customers have reported that the issue affected their drives at this time."

Initially, reports suggested that drives powered by Phison controllers were possibly among the most impacted, following errant reports that solely Phison drives were affected by the issue. Phison acknowledged the problem early on and even released a statement to Tom's Hardware confirming that some of their drives may have been affected:

"Phison has recently been made aware of the industry-wide effects of the 'KB5063878' and ‘KB5062660’ updates on Windows 11 that potentially impacted several storage devices, including some supported by Phison.... At this time, the controllers that may have been affected are under review and we are working with partners."

After testing, Phison has come to the conclusion that the issue may have been a false alarm. Prior to this development, a fake document circulated around the internet claiming to show affected Phison controllers that the company was quick to put down. It was falsified information that might've been deliberately targeting Phison rather than helping address the issue in a meaningful way.

All of that brings us to the latest event in this chain. Despite outright refuting the SSD-breaking reports, Phison says it's still committed to providing support to its customers in case anything happens. The company advises people to use heatsinks in high-performance drives, as thermal throttling can cause SSDs to underperform.

"We continue to advise users that for extended workloads, such as transferring large files or decompressing large archives, make sure a proper heatsink or thermal pad is used with the storage device. This helps maintain optimal operating temperatures, reduces the likelihood of thermal throttling, and ensures sustained performance."

The whole situation has turned into more of a narrative than it should have, with many singling out Phison despite reports of multiple drives being affected. And now Phison itself is denying the issue, which further muddies the water. Despite not being able to recreate the issue, it is possible that users of drives, including those powered by Phison controllers, are experiencing issues. For now, simply don't install the latest Windows 11 update if you wish to avoid the drama entirely.

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