Which NVMe Drivers are the best (performance related)?

Important Drivers Specific: NVMe Drivers
276

@westlake
Thanks for the important hint, that the available Win10/11 Builds contain different versions of the in-box MS NVMe driver named stornvme.sys. That it why all NVMe driver performance comparison tests should be done with the exactly same Win10/11 Build number.

Tiny correction: The Build Number of the related stornvme.sys file is 10.0.22621.755.

@all
Since I recently got access to a 2 TB WD_black SN850X NVMe SSD, I was able to do some additional benchmark tests by comparing its performance with the 1 TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD (they both do support PCIe 4.0).
Test configuration:
Chipset: AMD X570
OS: Windows 11 v22H2 Build 2261.1413, clean installed onto the Samsung 990 Pro SSD.
Tested NVMe SSDs:

  • a) 1TB Samsung 990 Pro (as system drive C:)
  • b) 2TB Western Digital WD_black SN850X (as storage drive D:)

Tested NVMe drivers:

  1. generic Microsoft Standard NVM Express Driver v10.22621.755 dated 10/19/2022
  2. Micron NVMe Controller Driver v2.1.19.0 WHQL dated 08/03/2021 (forced installation)
  3. generic Phison NVMe 1.2 Storport Miniport Driver v1.5.0.0 WHQL dated 02/23/2018
  4. Samsung NVMe Controller Driver v3.3.0.2003 WHQL dated 01/21/2020 (forced installation)
  5. Intel RST NVMe Controller Driver v17.11.3.1010 WHQL dated 11/25/2022 (forced installation)


Here are the benchmark test results:

(left/upper Pics: Samsung 990 Pro, right/lower Pics: WD_black SN850X)

1. MS Win11 in-box NVMe driver:
AMD X570+1TB Sams.990Pro+MS stornvmeAMD X570+2TB WD_Black SN850X+MS stornvme

2. Micron NVMe driver v2.1.19.0:
AMD X570+1TB Sams.990Pro+Micronv21190AMD X570+2TB WD_Black SN850X+Micron21190

3. Phison NVMe driver v1.5.0.0:
AMD X570+1TB Sams.990Pro+Phison1500AMD X570+2TB WD_Black SN850X+Phison1500

4. Samsung NVMe driver v3.3.0.2003:
AMD X570+1TB Sams.990Pro+Sams.3302003AMD X570+2TB WD_Black SN850X+Samsung3302003)

5. Intel RST NVMe driver v17.11.3.1010:
AMD X570+1TB Sams.990Pro+Intelv171131010AMD X570+2TB WD_Black SN850X+Intelv171131010


Evaluation:

  • Both tested NVMe SSDs are extremely performant, no matter which NVMe driver has been used. Only exception: Intel’s RST driver v17.11.3.1010 gave me bad “Random” Read and Write scores.
  • Remarkable difference: When it comes to Random Write accesses of bigger sized files (marked with red color), the Western Digital WD_black SN850X SSD gave me by far better numbers than the Samsung 990 Pro SSD.
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