Windows 11 is reportedly slowing down some SSDs

[harlan4096]

It has been two months since Windows 11 was released to users, but the operating system has had its fair share of bad publicity, especially when it comes to the performance. And now, reports are emerging that claim the operating system is slowing down some SSDs.A thread at the Microsoft community forums, spotted by Neowin, has complaints from several users who say their SSD's performance has degraded significantly after upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11.

Image credit: Microsoft forums.

The users have shared screenshots that show the benchmark results from drive measurement tools such as CrystalDiskMark, Samsung Magician, etc. You can tell simply by looking at the images, that there is a problem. The screenshots reveal that the random write speeds have halved in Windows 11, in comparison to benchmarks taken on Windows 10.

Interestingly, the majority of these complaints have one more thing in common, the issue seems to be prevalent among users with Samsung NVMe SSDs.

Some comments at the forums indicate that the issue does not affect Intel Optane SSDS.

Another theory rules out the possibility of VBS (Virtualization Based Security) affecting the performance, since the option was disabled before taking the benchmark. Some users have claimed that disabling the option has improved their system's speed, you can optionally try it by going to Windows Security > Device Security > Core Isolation, and toggle the setting for Memory Integrity. You may also want to turn off the Animation Effects under the Accessibility options in the Settings app.

Another couple of threads posted at the Microsoft Feedback Hub, and on Reddit, have many users discussing the issue. This problem hasn't popped up just now, it seems to have been around for 3 months or so. That is well before Windows 11 was released, which means Microsoft did not address the concern while the operating system was in the preview phase, and shipped it as is. The users appear to be on the stable channel of the operating system, and the consensus is that there is a bug in Windows 11 that affects the performance of SSDs. It is either that, or some bad drivers that are causing the issue.

Some users say that the recent Windows Update KB5007262 (which is a preview update) has improved their computer's performance. If you are facing similar issues, maybe that is something that you could try.
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