[German]I would like to discuss an observation made by a blog reader about Microsoft Windows 11 24H2. This reader has noticed that the transfer rates for reading and writing via SMB have become abysmal since he updated his machine to the new Windows 11 version. Maybe someone from the readership has an idea what is going on.
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Many issues with Windows 11 24H2
Since October 1, 2024, Windows 11 24H2 has been generally available for "willing testers" (see Windows 11 24H released (Oktober 1, 2024)). It is a so-called "major" feature update in which the entire operating system kernel is replaced. The enablement updates used in previous feature updates to enable new functions are therefore not available.
In the articles Windows 11 24H2: Numerous show-stoppers and known bugs and Windows 11 24H2: Serious issues after upgrade, there are indications that there are some serious problems (see also links at the end of the article).
Reader report about SMB transfer rates
German blog reader Stefan M. contacted me by e-mail and wrote that he noticed a strange behavior on Windows 11 24H2. He only achieved very poor transfer rates when restoring his data with Veeam from his WDMyCloud NAS. At first he thought it was an exception during a single restore.
But after taking a closer look, the reader noticed that even normal copy jobs from the NAS to the computer with Windows 11 24H2 (via a gigabit connection) managed a maximum transfer rate of 15 MByte/s. As a test, the reader tried the file transfers in a virtual machine under VMware Workstation with Windows 11 23H2 as the guest operating system. There he got an increased transfer speed of 90-100 MByte/s during file transfer. A value that he was also used to before.
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Various tests without result
The blog reader wondered and then switched off Microsoft Defender for testing, but without any resounding success. Since the backup to the WDMyCloud NAS takes place via a network connection using the Server Message Block protocol (SMB), he also ran the TCP script from my blog post Microsoft's TCP mess, how to optimize in Windows 10/11.
Transfer rates Windows 11 24H2 (left), 23H2 (right) click to zoom
But that didn't work either! The screenshot above shows the comparison of the SMB parameters (Windows 11 24H2 on the left, Windows 11 23H2 on the right). He then set up a virtual machine (VM) with Windows 11 24H2 for comparison purposes.
The result was also an extremely slow data transfer via SMB from and to the NAS unit. Copy jobs to the NAS are just as slow, writes the reader. The transfer rates are far below the values he achieves with Windows 11 23H2.
As a side note, the reader remarks that he had set up his computer completely fresh with Windows 11 24H2 last week. He then wondered why it took over 20 hours to restore his backed-up images/data. He was not used to this and started testing.
The WDMyCloud NAS runs with SMBv3 and NTLMv2 and he cannot define any more setting details here. The reader asks at this point: "Maybe you or the community have an idea". I don't have any ideas, but I also don't have Windows 11 24H2 running anywhere. At the moment, I'm not aware of anything like this that I can think of ad hoc.
Found a solution
Within my German blog post, a reader came out with a solution to fix the slow data transfer rate. It can probably fixed with a 32-Bit-DWORD entry RequireSecuritySignature = 0x0 in the following key:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\
Another reader wrote: Add this value not only in the LanmanWorkstation key, but also into the LanmanServer key. And on the NAS (QNAP 431X3) he also selected "Sign if client agrees" in the SMB parameters. Hope that helps.
Similar articles:
Windows 11 24H released (Oktober 1, 2024)
Windows 11 24H2: Numerous show-stoppers and known bugs
Windows 11 24H2: Serious issues after upgrade
Attention: Windows 11 24H2 changed default settings for standby
Windows 11 24H2: Administrative templates (.admx)
Windows 11 24H2: Activation lost?
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I don't have much to add for a solution, but I also have noticed even with a clean 24H2 install that my 12th gen laptop just has several issues causing sluggishness within its performance. From a core speed decrease overall with what appears to be a ceiling in place to not allow higher clock speeds. Also, slower network speeds with Realtek 8821CE. Noticed a couple users complaining non K Intel CPU's managing RAM at slower speeds. Just feel there are a lot of sloppiness to 24H2 which by this time should have been properly addressed before release to public. Did Microsoft push this out just for CoPilot benefit without properly fixing the OS itself?
Just a quick thanks for this post.
I thought for moment i'm going mad with this.
Noticed yesterday the decreased speed when i had to backup a lot of files to my NAS and first thought it was my Synology, my ethernet, my board etc.. Luckily i could test with my dual boot Arch install and then found your article based on this clues and this finally did it.
I'm fairly new to W11(loved 10 and tried to switch away to Arch, but had to come back for fairly specific use-cases) and boy .. W11 is such a hassle compared to 10. So much one has to do, to get it working and customized ..
I really hope i can one day switch away from all this MS-BS.
So: thanks :)
I was really going nuts with the same issue… I don't know how I got here, but it saved me!!!! This fixed the issue. Many, many thanks!!!
I have the same issue, If I copy files from one nvme to antoher nvme, the speeds are going down too 100 mb/s, in Crystak Disk Mark, the speeds are like 7000 mb/s r&w. There is no issues with the mvme or ssd, it's just somwthing worng with Windows 11 24H2. I did all kinds of troubleshooting and optimizations I could find on the Internet, no success. It's very annoing since I got a 10 gbit/s network and a highend enthusiastic computer. Any other ideas?
Things I checked:
No temperature issue
Changed and removed ahci sata drivers, nvme drivers, back to Windows default
Copy jobs with 3rd party tools
Basic ssd Windows settings
Basic SMB settings / optimizations
Updated all system drivers
MSI utility: activated msi and high priority
SFC & DISM scans
I did like everything which I could find on the Internet
Thanks, got much better performance from my BE550 router after doing this. My router didn't offer much in terms of settings. The performance via FTP was as expected, so I weren't sure were the problem was.
Not sure which SMB version the router is using, since the interface didn't offer much in terms of settings.
I cannot thank you enough for this thread and the guy who send it in (thx stefan – german too btw). It took me a whole fu***ng week to get here…i invested easily 40 hours and i m now able to end this journey of a nightmare!
The thing is – i bought myself a new FritzBox 7690 and build myself a new PC. I also got an QNAP 469L and before i changed my hardware i was also on Win 11 24H2 and had NO F**king problems (113 mb/s constant to my nas). after the upgrade i only had about 40mb/s transfer speed to my nas. i was going crazy. with iperf i had the full 1gbit/s and on wireless about 700 mbit/s. only the connection / transfer speed to the nas changed. some things i did to exclude errors:
– changed patch cables
– connected my pc directly to the nas
– configured my complete smb settings new (smb 2, smb 2.1, smb 3)
– tried nfs (v2, v3 and v4)
– tried ftp
– studied the fritz forum about the 7690
– resetted all network settings to factory defaults
– static ip adress
– dynamic ip adress
– disabled all energy savings on every hardware involved
– changed mtu sizes
– downgraded the ethernet driver
– etc. etc. etc.
– tested on macbook pro 2016 (no issues)
– tested again on iperf3 (no issues)
…and then – after excluding ALL other than windows itself – i finally – and i don t know how the hell – landed here
i installed a win 11 23h2 on stick (what i had on my old pc installed) and tested it via smb share and nas performance tester – and it worked! how the f*** did it ALSO work with w11 24h2 when i updated it from w11 23h2???? but now i have the solution and installed w11 23h2 as clean image again and it works.
thx mircosoft for nothing – but thx stefan and borncity for everything!
btw: the dword entry did nothing for me – i tried it before i reinstalled with w11 23h2
pps: i m a sys admin in 3rd for hardware in a big international company for about 20y now -this took me really a lot – i thought i m gonna cry :-D
While it sounds like this is working for some, I think there are much deeper problems in Win 11 24H2 with regard to speed. I heavily use VMs and their performance has become terrible. The VMs share access to the same NAS as the windows host pc, through the same network hardware and connection, and the issue presents inside the VMs. So I think the issue seems more to do with network IO, as that is abstracted inside the VMs away from the SMB stack. It presents as very slow SMB, but because it is a Linux VM shareing only the network IO layer it looks less like the protocol layer. Network performance is fine, and in my case SMB from the Host PC is fine. Very occasionally but under heavy IO In a VM I get a crash that spans VMs. I can bluescreen any and all Win 11 VMs at the same time (indicating an issue in the host), while the Linux VMs survive. My gut feeling is that this is to do virtualisation inside of Win 11 24H2 (even though I have Memory Integrity off, which I understand stops windows virtualizing specific processes). Whilst I don't have a solution, I would recommend anyone chasing this and with the skills looks at how data moves between RAM and IO devices in Win 11 24H2 and see if there is any additional virtualisation implemented as part of new security that is using a highly inefficient method of transfer to and from IO devices compared to before the update. My issue may be similar but different to the one described here, but it sounds like AES signing (which has to do with IO between CPU and RAM and network), and all in all, the fingers point to IO around the motherboard. As Win 11 24H2 uses more hardware virtualisation to secure drivers from system access, this security is a big question mark for me as the root cause for a lot of similar sounding problems.