Windows eleven Pro's encryption can gradual down SSDs by using nearly 50%

Windows 11 Pro ships with a safety feature that might severely impede your solid-state drive's overall performance. Fortunately, it is simple sufficient to turn off however a few may not even know it's miles enabled with the aid of default.

BitLocker encryption in Windows 11 Pro is designed to shield records and make sure it's far only reachable with the aid of authorized individuals, however it comes with a steep overall performance penalty. To discover how tons of an impact it is able to have, Tom's Hardware lately performed checks beneath 3 scenarios: unencrypted (no BitLocker), software program-enabled BitLocker (the Windows 11 Pro default), and hardware-based totally BitLocker.

The crew used a 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD walking Windows eleven Pro (22H2, with all patches established) paired with an Intel Core i9-12900K and 32 GB of DDR4 RAM for checking out.

In PCMark 10's storage benchmark, the software program-enabled BitLocker configuration resulted in a 20 percent slowdown over the hardware variation and no encryption. A similar slowdown became observed in Crystal Disk Mark's random examine check, and in the random write take a look at, Tom's saw a big forty five percent overall performance hit. In DiskBench's 50 GB reproduction switch take a look at, the software program-enabled BitLocker setup changed into 11 percent slower.

The good news is that the hardware-based totally setup accomplished in line with not having any encryption walking at all. If you insist on having encryption, that would clearly be the way to head.

The complete slate of test effects can be found over on Tom's Hardware for those who want to research greater. They also outline how to inform when you have encryption going for walks and the way to disable it in case you do. In short, in case you are going for walks Windows 10 Pro, it probable isn't always enabled; if you are on Windows eleven Home, it might not be enabled; when you have Windows 11 Pro, take a look at because it probably is enabled.

It's additionally worth noting that your mileage will vary depending on what force and CPU you're running. A chip this is considerably much less effective than the Intel Core i9-12900K Tom's Hardware used should carry out even worse.