AMD drivers may be writing to your SSD hundreds of times, but users (probably) shouldn't worry

[Loadedaxe]

you are missing the point. of course the smart data is what the drive provides, but this is the point. when the drive reports too many bad sectors for an example it will report imminent failure. same for other errors. in the end the health endurance is pretty darn accurate for ssd health. to your point its the drive providing the info. so the smart data and endurance reflects the true health. smart data doesnt lie it provides the same info to all the apps you use they grab the raw data smart is providing. the drives also run self tests and report that as well.

SMART comes from the drive itself, and yes, it’s the only health data we really can read from an SSD. But that doesn’t automatically mean the numbers are always a perfect or complete reflection of the drive’s true condition.

SSDs can still fail without ever showing bad sectors, and different manufacturers interpret SMART attributes differently. Some attributes like “endurance” or “percentage used” are useful, but others are vendor specific or not standardized, so two drives can report similar issues very differently. And it’s also common for SSDs to die suddenly with clean SMART logs, it happens daily in the real world.

So SMART data is valuable and often points in the right direction, but it’s not infallible. It’s best treated as one indicator...helpful, but not the only thing to rely on, and unexpected failures can still happen even if SMART looks good.

 

[Vanderlinde]

I'm using Primocache; and have setup a certain block value with write back caching. It means that any (frequent) written blocks to disk is being cached in RAM and stored within a timespan of 10 seconds, meaning a delay and less technical writes.

Not without the backup of a UPS; if power outage happens without a UPS data corruption could appear.

 

[RaXelliX]

I checked the (correct) directory and mine only had two files of small size in it, so for me it's a total nothing burger.

BTW the directory quoted in the article doesn't even exist, it's
"C\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\amdfendr.inf_amd64_a45773f484fe1fd0\AMD\EeuDumps"

This is my file on an AM4 system with 5800X3D and 9070XT. Both the chipset and GPU drivers are the newest:

"C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\amdfendr.inf_amd64_a45773f484fe1fd0\AMD\EeuDumps\R-gpu-0-g6-c200-2025-11-16-16-1-58-450.log"

It is updated all the time, but the writes are so small that they dont even appear in resource monitors disk activity tab. It's safe to say Firefox writes way more data at any given second.

 

[bandit8623]

SMART comes from the drive itself, and yes, it’s the only health data we really can read from an SSD. But that doesn’t automatically mean the numbers are always a perfect or complete reflection of the drive’s true condition.

SSDs can still fail without ever showing bad sectors, and different manufacturers interpret SMART attributes differently. Some attributes like “endurance” or “percentage used” are useful, but others are vendor specific or not standardized, so two drives can report similar issues very differently. And it’s also common for SSDs to die suddenly with clean SMART logs, it happens daily in the real world.

So SMART data is valuable and often points in the right direction, but it’s not infallible. It’s best treated as one indicator...helpful, but not the only thing to rely on, and unexpected failures can still happen even if SMART looks good.

I think we are agreeing. im not saying smart is God.

 

[Axeia]

Someone typo'd a development flag and accidentally left some logging process on?
Hope they fix it though, I've set Adrenalin to store 'replays' to RAM to prolong the life of my SSD

Yes I realize I'm paranoid about it - on the bright side, the SSD in my 2010 laptop still works fine (the drive itself is a little bit but not much newer, can't remember when I installed it).

 

[Loadedaxe]

I think we are agreeing. im not saying smart is God.

We agree on some points. Where I disagree is with the claim that “in the end, the health/endurance metrics are pretty darn accurate for SSD health.”

I get it....everyone wants to see some numbers to make themselves feel better about their SSD’s condition. But just because the drive is reporting the data doesn’t mean the SMART values or endurance estimates reflect its true health. Unfortunately, there is no real, reliable number. SSDs can, and often do, fail suddenly, without any warning at all.

 

[bandit8623]

We agree on some points. Where I disagree is with the claim that “in the end, the health/endurance metrics are pretty darn accurate for SSD health.”

I get it....everyone wants to see some numbers to make themselves feel better about their SSD’s condition. But just because the drive is reporting the data doesn’t mean the SMART values or endurance estimates reflect its true health. Unfortunately, there is no real, reliable number. SSDs can, and often do, fail suddenly, without any warning at all.

true but it goes both ways. for example I have some recyled sata drives that had a firmware bug and the health on all dropped down to 30% because of bad sectors(Firmware bug bad sectors). firmware has since been updated and those errors are gone. so I have drives that think/say are 30% but in reality they could have a ton of life left as the endurance is 100%

 

[Loadedaxe]

true but it goes both ways. for example I have some recyled sata drives that had a firmware bug and the health on all dropped down to 30% because of bad sectors(Firmware bug bad sectors). firmware has since been updated and those errors are gone. so I have drives that think/say are 30% but in reality they could have a ton of life left as the endurance is 100%

In this case, the reported health percentage can be misleading. If the firmware bug caused a bunch of false bad sectors, then the SMART health dropping to 30% isn’t really a reflection of the actual endurance or remaining life of the drive. True.

Since the firmware update cleared those errors and the endurance is still at 100%, the drives could absolutely still have plenty of usable life left. That’s why I said interpreting SMART health requires a bit of context rather than relying on the number alone.

 

[Ben Myers]

@brucek

Key words: "not needed". But we know Microsoft collects telemetry data on us Guinea pigs who continue to use Windows OS. So, maybe AMD is using the data.

If it was an honest mistake and can be fixed, I'm sure they will now that this story is broke. So, it's all good now.





Bruh, what is you putting in your smoking pipes today? Technology doesn't care about what you know. Technological advancements are about going beyond the boundaries of what you know. We already know that SLC has more endurance than TLC. And the engineers keep making improvements on NAND that has extended their useful life way past what it was in the beginning.

Using the words 'wear and tear' in the context of an SSD is a little bit odd. SSDs have no moving parts, HDDs do so, there's pros and cons to everything here.

I still use optical media. I just burned another BD-R disc that will probably last longer than any SSD/HDD drives available today. If you want another layer of data security, this is it.

Still, monitor SSD health via SMART data. However, keep in mind that there is no common agreed-upon spec for SSD SMART data, as there is for hard drive. Pacific Rim brands of SSDs often do little to show SMART data in my years of SSD experience.