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 News Editor, RAM Reviewer & SSD Technician 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.
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
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ssds/windows-11-rockets-ssd-performance-to-new-heights-with-hacked-native-nvme-driver-up-to-85-percent-higher-random-workload-performance-in-some-tests#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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