#SSD Slowing Down? Windows 11 Might Be to Blame

Users are reporting issues with Windows 11 and NVMe SSDs slowing down. If you’ve noticed that your drive isn’t as blazing-fast as it used to be and you’ve recently switched to Windows 11, that could be your problem.

When it comes to computer upgrades, an NVMe SSDs is one of the most noticeable changes you can make in terms of raw speed. However, some users notice a loss of speed with their drives after installing Windows 11. Between Reddit threads and Microsoft support forum posts (h/t Neowin), there’s no shortage of users complaining about NVMe issues.

According to benchmarks shared on Reddit by user MahtiDruidi, there’s a substantial drop in performance with the same drive on Windows 10 when compared to Windows 11.

Even more interesting is the fact that it only seems to affect the drive with Windows 11 installed. A user named PleasedPen25317 on Microsoft’s support forums found that testing a secondary drive on the same machine showed that only the Windows 11 drive was slower.

Interestingly, these complaints aren’t new, as users were reporting issues with SSDs and Windows 11 during the beta of the operating system, but they’re popping up again now that more people are upgrading to the final release version of Windows 11.

Hopefully, Microsoft gets to the bottom of this SSD issue, as users spend a lot of money to get the speeds offered by NVMe SSDs, and an OS causing them to lose that speed is a substantial problem that needs to be addressed.