Native NVMe testers, how are you doing?

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik]

I decided to bite the bullet and enable the native NVMe support flags on my Windows 11 laptop. As expected, it feels faster and much more snappy, huge thanks to whoever invented the placebo effect.

Do you have it enabled on your PC, laptop, server? Have you lost any data? Have you broken any apps? I'm all ears before I enable it for my main PC.

[u/Great-TeacherOnizuka]

What’s that?

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/Great-TeacherOnizuka]

Not many sources that look human-written, but a quick rundown can be found here: https://www.techpowerup.com/344348/windows-11-25h2-includes-a-faster-nvme-driver-needing-manual-installation

Basically, Windows is still treating NVMe SSDs as SCSI, which is a standard from the 80s. Lately, Windows Server got a new driver for NVMe that uses a native communication protocol, instead of 1000 compatibility layers stacked on top of one another. You can enable it on Windows 11, but it's super experimental. Synthetic tests show extreme performance gains, but like with all synthetic tests - the real life results aren't as impressive. Still, why settle for the nth version of a 1980s standard when you can go native.

[u/thanatica → u/SaltCaramelPonchik]

To answer your last question: because it's experimental? And some folks need stability more than performance.

Even Microsoft says it's not stable yet.

[u/recluseMeteor]

There is a difference in benchmarks, but nothing perceptible in daily usage. Still, I've got it enabled since it was reported.

Left side is the regular driver, right side is the new driver:

This was with a Kingston SA2000M8500G on a laptop with an 8th gen. Intel processor.

[u/howfastcanyoucountit → u/recluseMeteor]

actually decent improvement on the rnd4k q32t1 ngl might have to try

[u/ttman05 → u/recluseMeteor]

Thanks for the benchmark. I was expecting a larger margin/improvement.

[u/thanatica → u/ttman05]

I'm guessing it uses less CPU time. With oodles of CPU to spare in most desktops, the limits of the physical SSD stick are basically already reached.

[u/Kikoarl]

I do. Been using it since it was released, but didn't noticed any huge improvement.

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/Kikoarl]

What's your setup? I'm running a large number of NVMe drives, as many as my motherboard allows, and a few SATA devices on top. I'm really worried about losing all of the data, mostly because how much of a pain in the ass backup restoration can be.

[u/Kikoarl → u/SaltCaramelPonchik]

The maximum my motherboard allows. 3 NVMe drives and 2 SATA SSDs. 7800X3D, 64GB DDR5 and a RTX 5080. So far so good, no issues at all. YMMV though.

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/Kikoarl]

Super similar to mine then, except I'm on a Z790 Intel platform. Thanks, I'll triple check my backups and go for it I guess

[u/compguy96]

Tried it on a Steam Deck with Windows 11 (my only PC with an NVMe SSD). It did not improve anything. Speeds are nearly identical.

Anyway here's a guide https://hothardware.com/news/hidden-nvme-driver-win11-huge-speed-boost

[u/DevelopersOfBallmer]

How are you using it? Microsoft blocked in March for non server versions of Windows.

I also confirmed on Enterprise that as of today it is not working.

[u/PhantomOcean3 → u/DevelopersOfBallmer]

It wasn't blocked, the feature ID that enables it on client was changed, this happens from time to time with work-in-progress stuff. The new ID gets enabled by the registry stuff in OP's reply below

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/DevelopersOfBallmer]

Well, I can't find the article now but I applied the following flags:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides] "3244671118"=dword:00000001 "1853569164"=dword:00000001 "156965516"=dword:00000001 "1409234060"=dword:00000001 "735209102"=dword:00000001

I've seen the SSD pop up as a different category as it should, with nvmedisk.sys instead of disk.sys in the drivers. I can't tell you what the names are, my OS is not set to English so it would be of little use.

[u/DevelopersOfBallmer → u/SaltCaramelPonchik]

Are you up to date as this is what was blocked?

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/DevelopersOfBallmer]

Supposedly, yes. But I can't find the article like I said. Makes it work on my computer anyway, because I've just applied it on my PC.

[u/Firespecialstar]

I would say that for me on linux it's faster, but uhhh, don't wanna get downvoted to oblivion, and I'll be honest, I wasn't even aware of native nvme support, which would be super useful since I use a 4TB 990 Pro (yes, I got a bounty on my head from the AI datacenters)

thanks for the info, I'll try it during one of these days since I do often rely on disk intensive tasks and let you know

[u/SaltCaramelPonchik → u/Firespecialstar]

Congrats. Guess who got the best timed hyperfixation for buying SN850X 2TB drives thinking they'd be simply nice to have... I'm not exactly sleeping on them but when the shitshow happened I felt like I had won the lottery. I want to see them at running at their best to be honest, hence the interest in this native mode.

[u/LeapoX]

I've tried it on a few systems. The improvement is modest, but I will say that I've seen the largest improvements when using Gen4 drives in Gen3 slots.

[u/Breath-Present]

For me, I don't, as I don't feel my self-debloated Win11 has performance issue, and I value stability and data safety more. I only have a NVME SSD though, WD SN5000 2TB.

[u/CleverBumble]

I have one and I haven't even installed it yet. But I will soon lol

[u/Aemony]

I did. Couldn’t spot any real relevant performance improvements and so swapped back again to ensure highest compatibility.

[u/Square_Atmosphere_12]

I've installed this same drive.

[u/legitematehorse]

My primary concern is longetivity.

[u/zalnaRs → u/legitematehorse]

What? The old way may be even worse as not a long time ago Windows killed SSDs, not to mention even arcaos got a native NVMe driver. Windows is the last in the world.

[u/-PANORAMIX-]

When is this going to be enabled by default ?