Windows 11 is dramatically reducing the performance of NVMe SSDs

Windows 11 magnifying glass

If you have upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and noticed a reduction in the performance of your SSD, you are not alone. Since the launch of the operating system, online forums, Reddit and Microsoft's own support communities have seen increasing number of complaints about write speeds being significantly slower after upgrading.

What is key here is that the performance reduction is not just noticeable, it is also measurable. It would be easy to dismiss a handful of complaints about slowdown as being a matter of personal perception. But the observations and experiences of those complaining are borne out by benchmarks which show write speeds have been slashed.

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A post in Microsoft's forums back in October shows benchmarks performed in CrystalDiskMark. The results show a reduction in random write speeds approaching 50 percent when comparing Windows 11 and Windows 10.

As noted by Neowin, this is not an isolated complaint, and there are reports from numerous other Windows 11 users who have been disappointed with performance after upgrading from Windows 10. There are complaints in the Feedback Hub, used by Microsoft to gauge user experiences. One user, having conducted their own experiments, says:

Further testing all of my Nvme drives that use the Microsoft driver have this issue but my Intel 905P that has its own driver provided by Intel performs at full spec.

While Microsoft has not officially recognized the issue or offered anything in the way of workarounds or fixes, over on Reddit a Microsoft employee, Neal Christiansen (with the username neochristi) said several weeks ago: "I am on the Microsoft file systems team and am investigating this issue".

It is not just write times that are affected. There are also performance-related complaints about latency and read speeds.

It remains to be seen whether the issue is officially acknowledged and also whether the cause is attributed to bad drivers or a Windows 11 bug.

Image credit: IB Photography / Shutterstock

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