It’s rare we get anything for free these days, especially in the realm of storage and memory. But an updated Windows Server driver has officially given Windows native NVMe SSD support, and some enterprising users have got it working on standard Windows 11 Home and Pro installs for an impressive uplift in SSD performance, as TomsHardware reports.
The latest SSDs offer up to 15 Gbps of sustained read and write performance – 30 times faster than SATA SSDs of just a few generations ago. But faster is always better in the realm of PC technology, so how about some additional sustained performance and enormous improvements to random write performance?
Twitter/X user, Mouse&Keyboard managed to get the driver working on their Windows PC and found that their SK Hynix Platinum P41 2TB SSD saw an AS SSD benchmark score increase of 13%. In 4K-64Thrd workloads, the results were 22% faster.
On Reddit, Cheetah2kkk tried the driver out on their MSI Claw 8 AI+ using a fast Crucial T705 4TB SSD, and the results were even more impressive. Random read speeds jumped by 12%, while random write speeds increased by an incredible 85%.
This all comes from the bizarre fact that despite NVMe drives having been in use for over 14 years, Windows 11 still treated them like legacy SCSI drives – albeit very fast ones. By cutting out the command conversions from NVMe to SCSI, Microsoft has cut down the processing overhead and latency, leading to improved performance in a few key areas.
This is all great news for Windows Server users and those who’ve managed to get it working, but this needs to be released as part of a Windows update – not enabled through workarounds and sideload downloads.