How to unlock the massive SSD boost Microsoft is saving for Server 2025
Microsoft recently added native NVMe support in Windows Server 2025. I know what you must be thinking: It’s about time, right? Better late than never, I guess.
While Microsoft is currently focused on Windows Server 2025, Windows 11 users have found a way to test these improvements for themselves. Here’s how it works, how to try it, and whether you should even try it in the first place.
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Microsoft adds native NVMe to Windows: what does that change?
Some might say this change is long overdue.
Microsoft has supported NVMe for years, both on consumer PCs and servers, but it was more of a workaround than native support.
Even though NVMe has been around for over a decade, Windows still classifies these newer, considerably faster storage devices the same as older drives. As Microsoft itself states in its blog post, Windows treats NVMe as SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), which can add a lot of extra latency to an otherwise fast drive.
With native NVMe, Windows can finally stop translating NVMe requests to SCSI and process those requests directly. This was previously done with the StorNVMe.sys driver, which supported the translation of NVMe to SCSI.
Microsoft itself claims that this change could have a major impact on NVMe workloads. Without needing to convert NVMe to SCSI commands, Windows Server reduces overhead and latency. Microsoft claims that the I/O processing workflow benefits greatly from this overhaul, achieving “extreme performance.”
According to Microsoft’s own calculations, SCSI on NVMe drives significantly limits the I/O processing the drive can perform. SCSI was designed for older drives, including SATA HDDs and SSDs, and can only operate on a single-queue model with up to 32 commands. Meanwhile, NVMe can support up to 64,000 queues, and each of these queues can handle up to 64,000 commands at the same time. This is one reason why SATA SSDs are too old for modern systems, but it also highlights how obsolete the SCSI to NVMe workflow has become.
Savvy Windows 11 users have already found ways to try native NVMe
Microsoft is sticking with Server 2025, but users aren’t.
After Microsoft’s initial announcements, many enthusiastic Windows 11 users rushed to try to see if they could get native NVMe running in the consumer version of the operating system. And of course, they succeeded, with some reservations.
A Reddit user, Cheetah2kkk, tried it on his MSI Claw 8AI+ gaming handheld, equipped with a 4TB Crucial T705 PCIe Gen 5 NVMe SSD. PurePlayerPC on X (Twitter) also tried it and shared their findings. There’s also a whole thread of people exchanging thoughts on native NVMe on the Guru3D forums, so it seems like there are a decent number of people trying this out for themselves.
The common factor here is Windows 11 25H2 and registry changes.
Many users have had success getting this to work, and those who experience no issues almost universally report performance gains. I unfortunately couldn’t reproduce it on my end, but the sample size of users who have tried it successfully is increasing.
Native NVMe delivers performance gains across the board
Not just in Windows Server 2025.
Microsoft touts big performance gains with native NVMe and offers benchmarks to prove it.
A DiskSpd.exe test, run on 4K random read workloads on NTFS volumes, reveals that WS2025 systems deliver up to an 80% increase in IOPS with 45% fewer CPU cycles per I/O. Microsoft performed this test on a system with an Intel Dual Socket processor (208 cores, 128 GB RAM) and a 3.5 TB NVMe Solidigm device.
To recreate this test exactly, run the following command:
diskspd.exe -b4k -r -Su –t8 -L -o32 -W10 -d30The benefits experienced by those attempting to run it on Windows 11 vary, but we see an 85% improvement in random write speeds on the MSI Claw 8AI+, accompanied by a 12% increase in random read speeds. Meanwhile, PurePlayerPC reported a 13% increase in the AS SSD benchmark, as well as improvements in random write speeds reaching up to 22%. Not as impressive, but still awesome.
How to try native NVMe
Try it at your own risk.
Microsoft’s advice on Windows Server 2025 is to first check if your NVMe SSDs are currently using the Windows NVMe driver, as SSDs running on a vendor-specific driver won’t see any difference. If you do, your next step is to apply the latest cumulative update 2510-B and then add the registry key via PowerShell:
reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides /v 1176759950 /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /fMicrosoft doesn’t have an official way for Windows 11 25H2 users to try native NVMe. Although users have found ways to make it work on mainstream Windows, it’s not yet expected to work, and Microsoft doesn’t yet know when or if it will work. It is therefore possible that possible problems will never be resolved.
That said, if you want to try it, proceed at your own risk.
Some users are reporting problems starting or using the player after making these changes. Back up everything first or try it on a virtual machine to test it in a secure environment.
You will need Windows 11 25H2. After that, users recommend various registry tweaks that enable native NVMe on consumer PCs.
Each information source offers slightly different approaches, so I recommend checking out the Reddit thread, the X post, and the forum post.
Should you try this for yourself? Only if you don’t mind breaking something or know how to restore your disk to a previous state if you are unhappy with these registry changes.
Even though the scope is limited at the moment, it’s great to see that Microsoft seems to have found a way to speed up NVMe. Hopefully we will get an official release on Windows 11 in the near future.
