Unlock Native NVMe SSD Performance on Windows Server 2025 and Windows 11

Microsoft introduced a native NVMe SSD feature in Windows Server 2025 that replaces the traditional SCSI translation path with a direct driver, substantially increasing storage I/O performance, especially for data‑intensive workloads such as MSSQL databases.

Although Windows 11 does not officially expose this feature, users have discovered that the same driver can be enabled in the Windows 11 25H2 update by editing the registry, allowing them to test whether their NVMe SSDs benefit from the performance boost.

Test results from community contributors:

Mouse&Keyboard reported using a SK Hynix Platinum P41 2 TB SSD. After enabling the native NVMe driver, the AS SSD benchmark score rose from 10 032 to 11 344, a 13% increase, with random‑write performance improving 16% (4K) and 22% (4K‑64Thrd).

User Cheetah2kkk tested a Micron Crucial T705 4 TB SSD on a MSI Claw 8 AI+ handheld. Sequential speeds changed little, but random read rose 12% and random write surged 85%.

These community numbers align with Microsoft’s own data, which emphasizes that the primary benefit of the native NVMe driver is higher IOPS, making even modest random‑write gains valuable.

Who can benefit? Modern NVMe SSDs already meet the needs of most gamers, developers, and content creators, but enabling the native driver can still improve large‑scale game performance and speed up compilation tasks.

Warning: The feature is still experimental on Windows 11. Enabling it via the registry may cause instability on some drives, so it should be tested on non‑production machines.

How to enable the native NVMe SSD feature (Windows 11 25H2):

Navigate to the following registry key and add the listed DWORD entries (value = 00000001):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Policies\Microsoft\FeatureManagement\Overrides

735209102 = 00000001

1853569164 = 00000001

156965516 = 00000001

Note: Some SSDs may not be supported due to driver limitations.

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