Updated 26 October 2026: the page now follows the developer’s own patch notes: 0.10.0.4 (30 April) and 0.10.0.6 (18 May) reduced disk writes, and 0.10.0.9 is the current build. The page drops the save-folder redirect and RAM disk tips and the endurance lecture.
Windrose wrote up to about 108 GB an hour to players’ SSDs in April 2026, and the developer has reduced it in two patches. Kraken Express announced on 28 April that it would reduce disk usage “to reduce the load on SSD specifically”. Patch 0.10.0.4 on 30 April and patch 0.10.0.6 on 18 May lowered disk writes during gameplay. The current build on 26 October 2026 is 0.10.0.9, from 25 August, and no later patch note mentions disk usage.
What was measured
The YouTuber Pixel Operative recorded the game writing around 30 MB/s while the player walked around a base, which comes to about 108 GB per hour, TechSpot reported on 2 May 2026. The storage analyst NewMaxx (BoreCraft) traced the cause to the save system: Windrose uses the RocksDB database library with three databases, and the one for worlds had a very small write-ahead log budget, so small in-game changes forced many large flushes to disk. Before the patch RocksDB made 90,000 to 130,000 writes per second, according to TechSpot.
What the developer patched
| Version | Date | Disk-related line in the patch notes |
|---|---|---|
| Announcement | 28 April 2026 | Next update will address “Disk usage during gameplay (to reduce the load on SSD specifically)” in the community update |
| 0.10.0.4 | 30 April 2026 | “Disk usage during gameplay has been reduced” in the patch notes |
| 0.10.0.5 | 4 May 2026 | New save backup system: all data is backed up every 10 minutes of gameplay and on exit |
| 0.10.0.6 | 18 May 2026 | “Reduced disk space usage and optimized disk writes during gameplay” in the patch notes |
The developer’s patch notes give no before and after write figures. An allthings.how summary updated on 7 May 2026 puts the post-patch rate at about 10 to 16 MB/s during active play and below 1 MB/s when standing still, a reduction of 60 to 75 percent. It does not name who measured the figures, so they are an estimate.
Where Windrose keeps its saves
Kraken Express states that the game client saves to %LOCALAPPDATA%\R5\Saved\SaveProfiles. That folder sits on the Windows system drive by default, whichever drive holds the game files. The studio recommends backing up the whole SaveProfiles folder.
Checking your own SSD
Your SSD maker’s tool or a SMART reader shows the total data written to the drive, and the maker’s spec sheet gives the rated endurance in terabytes written (TBW). Compare the two numbers. For a drive rated at 600 TBW, writing 108 GB an hour would use the full rating in about 5,500 hours of play. Windrose costs $ 29.99 on Steam as an Early Access game since 14 April 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is Windrose still damaging SSDs?
The developer reduced disk writes in patches 0.10.0.4 (30 April 2026) and 0.10.0.6 (18 May 2026), and the notes since mention no disk issue. An independent summary reports about 10 to 16 MB/s during active play after the first patch, so the game still writes steadily.
Which Windrose patch fixed the SSD problem?
Patch 0.10.0.4 of 30 April 2026 reduced disk usage during gameplay, and patch 0.10.0.6 of 18 May 2026 optimized disk writes further. Steam updates the game automatically, and 0.10.0.9 from 25 August 2026 is the current build.
Where are Windrose save files stored?
The game client saves to %LOCALAPPDATA%\R5\Saved\SaveProfiles, according to Kraken Express. A dedicated server uses R5\Saved\SaveProfiles in its own folder. The studio recommends backing up the whole SaveProfiles folder.
How much did Windrose write to the SSD before the patch?
Pixel Operative recorded about 30 MB/s while walking around a base, roughly 108 GB per hour, as TechSpot reported on 2 May 2026.
Sources
- Kraken Express, Community update: new feedback website and other news, Steam, 28 April 2026
- Kraken Express, Patch Notes: Version 0.10.0.4, Steam, 30 April 2026
- Kraken Express, Patch Notes: Version 0.10.0.6, Steam, 18 May 2026
- Kraken Express, Steam Cloud Saves Update, Steam, 17 April 2026
- TechSpot, This Early Access pirate game was quietly killing your SSD, 2 May 2026
- allthings.how, Windrose high SSD usage explained and fixed, updated 7 May 2026
- Steam store page, Windrose (app 3041230), read 26 October 2026
Prepared by the GamerMarkt editorial team, with some help from AI tools; some images may be AI-generated.
