OpenAI Codex silently writes 640 TB/year to user SSDs, nearing consumer drive endurance limits

OpenAI Codex CLI's SQLite log database defaults to TRACE-level logging, writing 37 TB in 21 days—about 640 TB/year. A 1TB consumer NVMe SSD typically carries a 600 TBW endurance rating, meaning Codex alone can burn through the warranty limit in under a year. The bug was first reported on April 10 but only gained traction after hitting the Hacker News front page on June 22, because the database file size stayed stable and tools like du and Finder showed nothing wrong—only SMART counters revealed the physical write volume. OpenAI merged a fix on June 23; version 0.142.0 cuts roughly 85% of log writes, but the Windows desktop package still reproduces the issue and a third critical fix remains unreleased in 0.143.0. Affected users can symlink the log database to /tmp, block all inserts with a trigger, or periodically run VACUUM. No publicly confirmed cases of actual drive failure from this bug have been reported as of publication.

Why it matters: Silent SSD-burning writes from Codex is a concrete user-harm event with specific numbers, fix-status tracking, and self-check instructions — high information density. Hacker News front page + The Register follow-up form a cross-source signal. Not scoring higher because the fix...