Microsoft promises to nearly double Windows storage performance after forcing slow software-accelerated BitLocker on Windows — new CPU hardware-accelerated crypto will also improve battery life, but requires new CPUs

Microsoft has introduced a new form of hardware-accelerated BitLocker encryption in Windows 11, offloading encryption and decryption to a purpose-built cryptography accelerator baked into future CPUs to improve performance and efficiency. First announced at Ignite 2025 in November, the feature has been added to the latest versions of Windows 11 (25H2) and Windows Server (2025 with the September Update), along with UFS (Universal Flash Storage) Inline Crypto Engine technology. This new tech will undo the performance penalties that Microsoft imposed on its users by forcing them to use software-based encryption by default, offering twice the storage performance in some types of workloads.

According to our testing and support documentation, software-based BitLocker encryption is enabled by default on new installs of Windows 11 Pro. It reduces SSD performance by up to 45%, as encryption and decryption are handled by software running on the CPU….