Windows 11 rockets SSD performance to new heights with hacked native NVMe driver — up to 85% higher random workload performance in some tests

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Microsoft’s introduction of a native performance-boosting NVMe driver for Windows Server 2025 has sparked a wave of excitement for the best SSDs. Resourceful users quickly discovered a method to unlock this powerful feature on standard Windows 11 systems. Early user benchmark results are in, and they reveal outstanding performance leaps—whether on traditional PCs or portable gaming handhelds.

X user Mouse&Keyboard put the new NVMe driver to the test on Windows 11 25H2, paired with the SK hynix Platinum P41 2TB SSD. After enabling the driver, the AS SSD benchmark score soared from 10,032 to 11,344—an impressive 13% boost. The most impressive gains came in random write speeds, with 4K and 4K-64Thrd workloads surging by 16% and 22%, respectively.

Meanwhile, Redditor Cheetah2kkk showcased the performance gains on the Claw 8 AI+ equipped with a high-speed Crucial T705 4TB SSD. While sequential speeds saw moderate improvements, the most dramatic benefits were in random performance—perfectly aligning with Microsoft’s promises to boost IOPS and corroborating earlier user benchmarks. For the Crucial T705, random read speeds climbed by 12%, while random write speeds skyrocketed an incredible 85%.

Native NVME Support for Windows 11 25H2 from r/MSIClaw

The NVMe driver finally recognizes NVMe drives for what they are—instead of forcing them to act like legacy SCSI devices. By removing unnecessary command conversions from NVMe to SCSI, Microsoft was able to reduce processing overhead and latency, resulting in higher storage performance.

SCSI came out at a time where spinning disks were a thing. It was obvious that Windows needed a native NVMe driver to be able to take advantage of modern NVMe SSDs, especially those enterprise-level ones.

After 14 years, Microsoft finally delivered native NVMe support to Windows Server. The next pressing question: When, if ever, will mainstream Windows users see this upgrade? While enthusiasts can activate it through registry tweaks, there are notable caveats—most third-party tools, especially popular SSD management software like Samsung Magician or Western Digital Dashboard, aren't yet compatible and could malfunction.

For most everyday users, Microsoft’s native NVMe driver won’t make a noticeable difference—its real advantages shine in enterprise or server environments. That’s why Microsoft prioritized Windows Server, where tasks like databases, virtualization, file servers, and AI or machine learning workloads truly benefit. For now, the feature’s impact on standard or gaming systems remains limited.

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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

46 Comments Comment from the forums

bit_user

Only 6.31% improvement on 4k (presumably random) read and only 0.21% improvement on sequential (presumably 1 MB?) read. These are the most relevant metrics for desktop user experience.

Perhaps I'd do it if I were building a new system, but this level of improvement isn't worth any amount of risk or trouble with a system I currently depend on. Pass.
Reply
ezst036

When I saw the news the other day that Windows Server was getting native nvme I thought hey this is cool but its no big deal that's just windows server.

Windows as a whole has never supported native NVMe???? What??????

I find it curious how that fell through the cracks.
Reply
emike09

Seems to work great for me on W11 25H2. Samsung 990 Pro. Not a major improvement, but an improvement none the less. I'll take it!

Before:
SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 7451.325 MB/s < 1125.39 us>
SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 4425.757 MB/s < 236.84 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 784.648 MB/s < 45.87 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 93.819 MB/s < 43.60 us>

SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 6726.143 MB/s < 1245.82 us>
SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 5823.543 MB/s < 179.96 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 691.672 MB/s < 17.31 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 302.665 MB/s < 13.47 us>

After:

SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 7443.153 MB/s < 1126.54 us>
SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 4450.437 MB/s < 235.53 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 1031.279 MB/s < 43.52 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 100.240 MB/s < 40.80 us>

SEQ 1MiB (Q= 8, T= 1): 6886.780 MB/s < 1216.85 us>
SEQ 1MiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 5878.163 MB/s < 178.29 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 32, T= 1): 800.893 MB/s < 11.03 us>
RND 4KiB (Q= 1, T= 1): 319.283 MB/s < 12.77 us>
Reply
bit_user

ezst036 said:
Windows as a whole has never supported native NVMe???? What??????

I find it curious how that fell through the cracks.
Yeah, I had a similar thought. Like: why has it taken them a full decade since the first NVMe drives hit the market?
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-750-series-ssd,4096.html
While I stand by that, reading their blog post does give me the impression that it's more accurate to say they overhauled their storage stack to better exploit the capabilities of NVMe drives. I have previously used the analogy (although I accept it's imperfect) of Jens Axboe's IOPS tuning of Linux. In just about a year's time, he optimized Linux from 2.58M IOPS to 10M per core, on the same Optane SSD:
https://www.phoronix.com/news/IO_uring-Gen2-Optane-ICL-Xeon https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-IO_uring-10M-IOPS
Granted, he did switch CPUs, so we don't know exactly what the final IOPS figure would've been on the original CPU.
Reply
adamXpeter

Outcry because "Windows destroyed my data !!1!" in 3.. 2.. 1..
Reply
thestryker

bit_user said:
Yeah, I had a similar thought. Like: why has it taken them a full decade since the first NVMe drives hit the market?
I'd be surprised if they started working on it before enterprise storage started shifting to NAND en masse over the last 3-5 years. Microsoft has a pretty huge problem when it comes to following through on the technical side of things which is seemingly due to customer demand. They still haven't resolved the issues with ReFS integrity streams and this problem has been known for over 3 years (ReFS has been in active development for over a decade).

I don't know if it's limited to a management issue, but it sure seems like that's where these issues stem from. Microsoft should really be leading the way technology wise given how many developers they employ.
Reply
bit_user

thestryker said:
Microsoft should really be leading the way technology wise given how many developers they employ.
Well, their developers do a lot more than just OS stuff. Even there, they now have to support Linux as well as Windows.

I'm sure if you compare the number of developers MS employs to work on the Windows kernel, it's pale in comparison to all the Linux kernel devs around the world. Performance-wise, Windows just cannot keep up.
https://www.phoronix.com/review/windows-11-25h2-ubuntu-2510
Sure, it's still faster at some things, but those are becoming fewer and Linux is starting to gain an edge even in gaming.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-steamos-than-windows-11-ars-testing-finds/
Reply
mwestall

Since when is a single digit increase "Rockets Performance"????
A rocket up performance would be 50-200%
FFS, rubbish clickbait, again, this site is rapidly going down the toilet.
Reply
thestryker

bit_user said:
I'm sure if you compare the number of developers MS employs to work on the Windows kernel, it's pale in comparison to all the Linux kernel devs around the world. Performance-wise, Windows just cannot keep up.
I disagree that they can't keep up. Management constantly chasing the next big thing is what keeps them held down. Just think of how much developer time has been pissed away on copilot integrations.

bit_user said:
Sure, it's still faster at some things, but those are becoming fewer and Linux is starting to gain an edge even in gaming.
It's really not though. This is something that people who aren't familiar with what's actually going on keep parroting though. GN did their first Linux testing not long ago and explained thoroughly why they weren't going to compare to Windows. There are potential pitfalls from improper rendering to properly capturing performance (no Linux PresentMon to rule them all).

Ironically in the handheld space specific Linux builds offer a better out of the box experience, but that's due to superior scheduling design (and precompiled shaders). You can make Windows perform better on handheld with manual configuration and in many cases it will outperform Linux when doing so. It's a stupid problem that's at the feet of Microsoft, but it doesn't mean Linux is actually better performing.
Reply
darylzero

Who is using a single NVMe in a server though? 99% of servers with be setup with some kind of RAID using a controller
Reply

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