Native NVMe Support is Possible in Windows 11
Users have managed to enable a functionality that was meant for Windows Server 2025, which allows communication between the OS and NVMe drives. This bypasses the SCSI, a legacy and long integral part of the how Windows communicates with high-speed storage.
Reported Performance Improvements
Users have reported improved actual SSD performance after enabling the feature by registry modification. ComputerBase and Heise have brought out tests that can show this huge noticeable difference in performance.
- Data-transfer speeds: Show improvement, both in read and write speeds.
- Latency: After access times and latencies are reduced, performance overall is expected to be boosted by 10-15%.
- Subjective Experience: System respond seems much snappier, fast loading of background applications.
Potentially Serious Risks and Problems
The actual enabling of native NVMe support is an experimental modification, and Microsoft does not officially support it on Windows 11. Manipulating the registry in this way can lead to a host of problems.
- Drive Recognition Errors: The SSD utility may not recognize such drives. Sometimes, both are reported and sometimes they disapear entirely.
- Identifier Changes: Changes this unique identifier of a drive could affect backup software and other specialized applications that [based on these identifiers].
Recommendations and future outlooks
Use utmost caution if interested in this modification. Backup everything: a complete system and data backup will serve users well, assuming they do registry changes later on. This is also recommended that trial run be made in a virtual machine.
In the future, perhaps native NVMe support will become "standard," supported in consumer versions of Windows and will distribute the full potential of modern SSDs without these risks.
