Windows Server 2025 gets NVMe support with the new cumulative update.
Microsoft has announced that the latest October cumulative update provides NVMe support in Windows Server 2025.
Up to 80 percent more performance
The new NVMe support is now generally available and is standard in the operating system, but it is not yet automatically enabled. Administrators must adjust a registry setting or apply a group policy themselves.
According to Microsoft, those who do so can expect up to 80 percent more IOPS and up to 45 percent less CPU load during heavy I/O tasks. This is especially interesting for file servers, virtualization, databases, and AI or machine-learning workloads.
No special hardware required
Microsoft bases these figures on tests with a powerful but fairly normal server configuration. Even with a single thread, clear improvements were visible, while with multiple threads, the CPU load decreased sharply. According to Microsoft, the entire I/O processing chain has been reworked, with better locking mechanisms and lower latency as a result.
Tom’s Hardware writes that in online comments, some administrators report that they see little difference, while others indicate that PCIe 5.0 NVMe drives in particular benefit. Performance may even decrease slightly with some consumer drives because they are designed without NVMe.
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