Windows 11 Pro comes with a security feature enabled by default that can severely hinder your PC’s solid-state drive (SSD) performance. Users can turn it off easily.
According to Techspot encryption feature, the BitLocker in Windows 11 Pro is designed to protect data and ensure only authorized individuals can access it, but it comes with the potential to drain performance. high yield. To find out how much of an impact it can have, Tom’s Hardware recently tested three scenarios: unencrypted (no BitLocker), and software-enabled BitLocker (Windows 11 Pro’s default). ) and hardware-based BitLocker
The team tested on a system equipped with a Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB SSD running Windows 11 Pro (22H2, all patches installed) combined with an Intel Core i9-12900K CPU and 32 GB DDR4 RAM.
In PCMark 10’s storage benchmark, the software-enabled BitLocker configuration resulted in speeds 20% slower than the hardware-based variant with no encryption. Similar slowdowns were observed in the Crystal Disk Mark random read test, and in the random write test, Tom’s Hardware saw a significant 45% drop in performance. In DiskBench’s 50GB copy transfer test, the software-assisted BitLocker setup was 11% slower.
encryption status To check the SSD on your PC, launch an elevated command prompt (run CMD as administrator) and enter the command: management-bde -status, a screen will appear. Here, users will need to consider the Conversion Status and Encryption Method. Toggle Status will indicate whether the PC has encryption enabled, while Encryption Method will indicate whether it is hardware or software encryption. If the method shows “XTS-AES” then it is software BitLocker, and if the content shows Hardware Encryption then it is hardware encryption.
If you receive a message stating that the drives are “Fully Decrypted” and “Protection Off”, your PC is not using the BitLocker feature. For a home PC, that may be fine, but on a laptop that can be more easily stolen, the user may need to enable it.
In short, if your PC is running Windows 10 Pro then BitLocker may not be enabled, if using Windows 11 Home it will not be enabled, and if using Windows 11 Pro, double check as it may already be enabled. turn on.
It’s also important to note that the level of performance reduction will vary depending on the SSD and CPU in use, with the numbers being higher or lower