What you need to know
- The Windows 11 March 2023 Patch Tuesday update started rolling out last week.
- The update includes several improvements for the OS.
- It also appears to have a bug that can cause SSD speeds to drop dramatically.
Microsoft shipped the Windows 11 March 2023 Patch Tuesday update last week. The update improves the operating system in several ways but it also seems to have a bug that can lower the read and write speeds of SSDs.
As Windows runs on billions of computers, it can be difficult to determine how widespread an issue is. There are several reports of slower SSD speeds following the latest Windows 11 update. We'll have to wait and see what Microsoft says and how many other reports appear to determine how many people willl be affected by the bug.
Affected systems can see SSD speeds that are half of what they are when not affected by the bug, according to a Reddit thread (via Neowin)
"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," said Reddit user mesp21.
"Just uninstalled the cumulative update and my SSD is reaching the 7000 read speed again and Windows is snappy again. So there's a huge problem with this one.
Others in the thread made similar complaints. File transfer speeds can be affected by several factors, so it's difficult to measure the impact of a specific bug, particularly when Microsoft has not yet confirmed the issue.
If you've run into the bug, you can use the following steps to uninstall the most recent Windows 11 update:
- Open Start.
- Open Settings.
- Select Windows update.
- Select Update history.
- Select Uninstall updates.
- Locate the update you'd like to uninstall (in this case KB5023706).
- Select Uninstall.
Alternatively, you can hold out to see if Microsoft rolls out a fix for the problem. The company is generally reactive to these types of issues and ships fixes as soon as possible.
