- Windows 11 shows slower NVMe SSD performance than Windows 10.
- The problem isn’t new since users have been reporting it for months.
- Microsoft hasn’t officially confirmed the problem.
Windows 11 now has a problem causing slow performance for NVMe Solid-State Drives (SSDs). According to user reports on Reddit and the Microsoft forums (via Neowin and XDA), after upgrading from Windows 10 to 11, the performance of the NVME drives can be significantly slower than before the upgrade. For instance, a number of users are experiencing lower input/output operations per second (IOPS) and some others are seeing slower read/write speeds.
The problem isn’t new, reports of this issue go back several months, even while the OS was still in preview, but nothing seems to have changed after Microsoft decided to launch Windows 11 on October 5, 2021.
In the Microsoft forums, user “MJ_JasonM” explains his experience and share a screenshot of the drive performance on Windows 10 and then after upgrading to Windows 11.
On Reddit, a Microsoft employee has acknowledged the company investigating the issue, but this happened several months without an official follow-up.
In another thread, user MahtiDruidi on Reddit shared another screenshot showing noticeable slower write speeds on NVMe drives.
The root of the cause is still unknown since the software giant hasn’t acknowledged this as a problem. However, some users have mentioned that the performance issue could lie in the virtualization-based security (VBS). Others have discovered that the issue only happens on the drive that contains the Windows 11 installation. For instance, if you run a benchmark on a secondary drive, the reads and writes speeds do not change significantly compared to Windows 10.
For example, a screenshot was posted in the Microsoft forums showing a significant difference in speeds on two top-of-the-line Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSDs on the same machine.
You can also find similar complaints in the official Feedback Hub. One user confirmed its 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe drive running Windows 10, the popular CrystalDiskMark benchmark tool, reports random write speeds around 750-850MB/s. However, on Windows 11, the random write speeds are only around 200MB/s on the 970 EVO Plus and 980 PRO. In response to this post, other users reported similar findings when running benchmarks on their devices using NVMe drives.
Microsoft has recently released the update KB5007262 as a preview for Windows 11 that bumps the version number to build 22000.348, which some user reports have shown signs of speed improvements, but it doesn’t fix the problem.
Mauro Huculak is a Windows How-To Expert who started Pureinfotech in 2010 as an independent online publication. He has also been a Windows Central contributor for nearly a decade. Mauro has over 14 years of experience writing comprehensive guides and creating professional videos about Windows and software, including Android and Linux. Before becoming a technology writer, he was an IT administrator for seven years. In total, Mauro has over 20 years of combined experience in technology. Throughout his career, he achieved different professional certifications from Microsoft (MSCA), Cisco (CCNP), VMware (VCP), and CompTIA (A+ and Network+), and he has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for many years. You can follow him on X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn and About.me. Email him at [email protected].