that bug is not real. it never existed in the first place. no one has been able to reproduce - not Microsoft, not the SSD vendor & there was a forged document spread around, suggesting that the entire thing was bad faith in the first place.
Considering that: Both Phison and Microsoft officially dismissed/neglected the issue KB5063878 was never retired Jaytwocents method in reproducing the issue was inherently flawed with clearly no correlation with the update and was more a clickbait video (so I imagine most Reddit/Forum posts, which are way less "tech-savvy" than him, may have been even more flawed) I personally installed KB5064081, the newest CU (Build 26100.5074 = also the base of 25H2) on all my machines and also did stress tests on all of them resulting in zero issues and no degraded health on any on my SSDs I would conclude it actually started as an elaborate hoax and finished with mass web hysteria, all with no real issues with any update in the middle.
It was probably overheating in the hot summer with no proper cooling, especially in high-load situations, like copying big amounts of data...
I would suggest to take preemptive measures, disable maintenance, indexing, superfetch, defragmenting SSD, since 11 was already destroying them twice, after ignoring the bug for years, etc. I would not trust MS with anything.
For sure do backups, but any of that is unnecessary. If SSD fail is just because of heat and usage over time.
It may be a stupid question, but are Flash Drives affected too? I just copied 115GB worth of videos to a USB flash drive and not only is it slow, when I use VLC to open the files, the files keep pausing, and it's not because I've been pausing it either. If need be, I will wait until the update to reattempt the copy operation, but I would like to know, are USB flash drives affected as well, or is it SSDs and some HDDs?
A general overheating problem can of course also kill external flash drives (which often are just an SSD in an enclosure). USB sticks are less prone to overheating, though.
Quite possible IF they are overheating. Adequate cooling solutions and watching disk parameters (Crystal DiskInfo) reduce that risk to almost zilch.
How can I cool down flash drives? EDIT: I don't normally use the flash drive. It's for a friend. I'm going to give it to him.
Depends on what flash drive, it's a relatively general term. For external SSDs, it's simply a question of buying the right enclosure, there are good ones with passive cooling (fins) or even active cooling (fans). Especially required for NVMe drives, SATA drives are bigger and dissipate the heat better. USB thumb drives shouldn't get that hot, unless their connections are degenerated and don't make optimal contact anymore. I'm not aware of cooling solutions for them.
SanDisk Ultra Fit drives tend to run hot. If they "overheat" is up to debate, but they are certainly much warmer than expected.
One of the reasons, I prefer to buy metal ones only, reliable on top of that, like waterproof, that guarantees, that they are well build and high temperature resistant. They are only slightly more expensive, but worth it. I have those:
It also depends on the speeds they operate at, the circuitry/controller etc. Some are more efficient than others.