When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
(Image credit: Getty Images) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google There's pretty big news for Windows Server administrators. After some delays, starting with Windows Server 2025 and its latest October Cumulative update, the operating system will finally support native NVMe I/O , marking the end of an era where requests were translated to SCSI bus commands, even with the highest-powered drives.
The feature has now reached General Availability and is built right into the OS, though it's not enabled by default. Sysadmins willing to take the plunge only have to tweak a registry key, or add a group policy MSI, and they can enjoy up to 80% higher IOPS and up to 45% lower CPU utilization under a high I/O load. This should be a shot in the arm for scenarios involving high-performance file serving, virtualization, AI and ML workloads, and databases.
Those figures came from a single test setup that though powerful, didn't even seem particularly exotic for this arena: a two-socket Intel system with 208 logical cores, 128 GB of RAM, and a Solidigm D7-PS1010 3.5TB PCIe 5.0 solid-state drive. Even with a single I/O thread, the system saw gains of 45% IOPS, increasing to 78% at eight threads, and 71% at 16 threads. Meanwhile, CPU load under 4K random reads saw a 41% reduction with eight threads and 47% with 16.
Samsung teases radical new modular SSD design with swappable NAND and SSD controller that can be detached independently
HighPoint RocketAIC 7608AW Review: The Fast Gets Even Faster with 56 GB/s of throughput
Western Digital Black SN8100 PCIe 5.0 SSD gets an 8TB capacity boost
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/desktops/servers/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/servers/windows-server-2025-gains-native-nvme-support-14-years-after-its-introduction-groundbreaking-i-o-stack-drops-scsi-emulation-limitations-for-massive-throughput-and-cpu-efficiency-gains#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Mixture of Experts Powers the Most Intelligent Frontier AI Models, Runs 10x Faster to Deliver 1/10 the Token Cost on NVIDIA Blackwell NVL72
- Ride Into Adventure With Capcom’s ‘Monster Hunter Stories’ Series in the Cloud
- China convicts 27 people for smuggling 166 tons of critical chipmaking element antimony — heavily-restricted mineral used for semiconductor manufacturing export
- Grab a punchy RTX 5060 Ti-powered iBuypower gaming PC for less than $900 — it even packs 32GB of DDR5 RGB RAM and an 8-core Ryzen processor
- HP Omen 34c G2 34-inch WQHD 180 Hz gaming monitor review: Delivering style, speed and value
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.