Windows 11 Version 22H2’s Latest Patch Tuesday Update May Degrade SSD Performance

Windows 11

The March Patch Tuesday update for Windows 11 version 22H2 may be causing some new SSD performance issues, according to various user reports. This is the “Moment 2” update that introduced various new features to Windows 11 including a search box in the taskbar as well as AI-powered recommendations in the Start Menu. 

Since the release of Windows 11 version 22H2 last fall, Microsoft has acknowledged a known issue causing slowdowns when copying files on devices running the latest version of Windows 11. Microsoft is still working on a fix for this bug that affects both local copies and network share via the SMB protocol.

However, the SSD performance issues reported by users since the release of this month’s Patch Tuesday update appear to be unrelated to this already-known bug.

Windows 11 users point out SSD speeds and longer boot times after installing this month’s Patch Tuesday

In the Reddit thread related to this month’s Patch Tuesday updates, the top comment from user mesp1 mentions an SSD performance degradation issue after installing this month’s KB5017389 patch for Windows 11 version 22H2. 

“Tanked my SSD nvme reading and writing speeds, like A LOT. Went from 7000 to 3000, sometimes 1000 using the balance energy profile in my Legion 5 2021.” The Reddit user also mentioned that his SSD speeds went back to normal after uninstalling the update. 

In the same Reddit thread, another popular comment from user sebascq also pointed out a similar issue on their device after installing this month’s Patch Tuesday update.

“I updated my laptop to the 22H2 SO 22621.1344 and noticed that the boot up time increased by a lot it went from around 14 seconds to 31 seconds which is weird because I have 0 programs or apps on startup or background when I boot up the pc with the exception of Nvidia Config,” the post reads. 

As of this writing, it appears that Microsoft has yet to comment on this new issue affecting SSD performance on Windows 11 version 22H2. It’s not clear if this is a widespread problem, but if SSD read and write speeds are really critical to your workload, you may want to hold on before installing this update.