M.2 SSD Slow? How to Make M.2 SSD Faster - 5 Effective Ways

Why Is M.2 SSD Slow? 

NVMe M.2 SSD is an M.2 SSD disk using the Non-Volatile Memory Express communication protocol. M.2 SSD is faster than SATA SSD, because it is directly connected to the motherboard, and the data transfer speed is faster, which can reach 3500 MB/S. However, after replacing the hard drive with M.2 SSD, some users found that the M.2 SSD did not satisfy them. Search this issue on Google, you will find some questions like:

"Can We Optimize SSD for Faster Performance? Extremely slow m.2 SSD? How to increase the speed of a NVME SSD?" - from Reddit 

The performance of M.2 NVMe SSDs degrades significantly over time. If you are experiencing slow NVMeSSD write speeds, please review the following causes:

• Overheating or insufficient power supply
• Outdated firmware or lack of NVMe support
• Disk fragmentation or insufficient space error
• Too many applications running at the same time

In addition, incorrect cloning, missing or disabled TRIM commands, and incorrect boot sequence configuration may also cause slow M.2 SSD write problems. Don't worry, this article will show you how to speed up m.2 SSD.

How to Fix M.2 SSD Slow and Make M.2 SSD Faster with 5 Ways

The speed of M.2 SSD can be affected for many reasons, which are common in storage devices. Sometimes, the M.2 SSD itself isn't really slowing down, but some external factor is causing it to slow down.

First of all, you can check if the M.2 SSD is properly connected to the motherboard. If there is no problem, you can refer to the following methods to try to solve it.

▶ Option 1. Run SSD 4K Alignment

SSD uses the smallest 4K sector in the file system to store data. But if the smallest 4K allocation unit is not always aligned with a 4K page in the SSD, then the performance of the SSD will suffer. The SSD alignment can better serve the OS and play the best performance.

To do it, I strongly recommend you to use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. This is a powerful disk management expert that does not carry any bundled software, and you can complete partition alignment with a few clicks. You can download and try to see how to make M.2 SSD faster.

Step 1. Install and run AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the partition you want to align and select Advanced > Partition Alignment.

Step 2. In the pop-up window, select 4096 sectors from the given list and click OK.

Step 3. Click Apply > Proceed to execute the operation.

▶ Option 2. Verify that TRIM is enabled

Before adding new data to the M.2 SSD, it will take time to clean up the data that was previously marked as deleted, so this will slow down the writing speed. SSD TRIM is to let Windows tell the M.2 SSD that data blocks are not needed and can be deleted, and then automatically erased. This will increase the write speed of the M.2 SSD. Therefore, we need to make sure that the system has TRIM enabled.

Step 1. Search for cmd in the taskbar. Then right click on it and select Run as administrator.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type: fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify and hit Enter.

Step 3. After a few moments, the command prompt will display one of the following two messages:

● "NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 0": Indicates that TRIM is enabled on your SSD.
● "NTFS DisableDeleteNotify = 1": Indicates that TRIM is disabled on your SSD.

Step 4. If the SSD does not have TRIM enabled, type in: fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0 and hit Enter to enable it.

▶ Option 3. Don’t defrag SSD

Some users may know that disk defrag helps speed up the disk. However, please never defrag SSD. Since HDD and SSD are constructed differently, performing disk defrag on SSD will have a negative impact and we need to cancel automatic defrag.

Step 1. Press Windows + R, type “dfrgui” and hit Enter to open Disk Defragmenter.

Step 2. Select your SSD from the device list and click Configure Schedule.

Step 3. If checked to disable disk defragmenter from running automatically, uncheck Run on schedule.

▶ Option 4. Try SSD secure erase

If the SSD has been used for a long time, its performance may degrade a lot. At this time, you can improve its performance with a secure erase and it will restore the SSD to peak performance.

Warning: This operation will erase all data on the SSD. If there have important data, please back it up in advance.

▶ Option 5. Extend the C drive

As we all know, there is no enough space on the system drive (usually the C drive) will cause the M.2 SSD running slow, so we need to ensure that the C drive has enough space to keep it running properly. You can also use AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to extend it.

Step 1. Find a partition with a large storage space, right-click, and select "Allocate Free Space".

Step 2. In the Allocate free space window, modify the storage space to be allocated change the target partition to (C:), and click "OK".

Step 3. Click “Apply” to submit the operations.

Sum up

This is the whole process of how to make M.2 SSD faster. In this post, you are going to learn 5 ways to fix M.2 SSD slow. You can try these ways one by one until it works.

Last but not least, if you are running Windows Server, please switch to Server Edition, which is designed for Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012, 2008, 2003 users.