In December 2025, Microsoft rolled out a native NVMe driver specifically designed for Windows Server 2025. This innovative driver did away with the SCSI-to-NVMe protocol translation layer, instead harnessing the NVMe protocol's capabilities directly. As a result, it brought about a substantial enhancement in solid-state drive (SSD) IOPS performance, coupled with reduced latency and lower CPU utilization. What's more, this driver is also compatible with Windows 11. Users have the option to enable it, albeit through modifying the registry—a process that may not be straightforward for all.

Benchmark tests have revealed that PCIe 4.0 SSDs experience a notable performance boost when using this driver. Sequential read speeds surge by 20% to 45%, while write performance sees an improvement of 15% to 30%. These figures underscore the potential benefits that users could reap, were it not for the registry modification requirement.