Your Windows 11 PC is showing signs of some slowdowns when reading or writing to its SSD drive. The culprit is probably BitLocker, the Windows encryption device, which you can fortunately deactivate!
Whether personal or professional, the data stored on a computer is intended to remain confidential. And the best technique to protect them from prying eyes is to encrypt them, that is to say, to encode them using an encryption algorithm. In the Pro version of Windows 11 (the Home version is not affected), this complex – and transparent – task is entrusted to BitLocker, a software device from Microsoft which relies on the PC’s processor to encrypt and decrypt at the same time. steals the data stored on the disk. Normally activated by default, this security function guarantees good protection, particularly on professional computers so that the data they contain cannot be accessed in the event of theft.
However, while it is supposed to be invisible and even imperceptible, BitLocker is not without effect. Worse, this security feature significantly slows down PCs in common operations. Our American colleagues from Tom’s Hardware were able to establish that the performance of an SSD could drop by 45% because of BitLocker, which is far from negligible! They carried out tests on a desktop PC equipped with an Intel Core i9-12900K processor with 32 GB of RAM and a 4 TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD. A powerful machine, therefore, which nevertheless suffers from latency in copying and data processing on the SSD. These disappointing results therefore do not bode well for much less efficient laptop PCs.
To avoid this permanent slowdown, there is only one solution: deactivate BitLocker. Fortunately, this is a very simple operation to carry out. If you are an administrator of your PC (that is, if it was not given to you by your company’s IT department) and you want to regain some performance when reading and writing data on your SSD, it is therefore in your best interest to disable BitLocker. Especially since most SSD manufacturers offer their own encryption system, hardware this one, directly integrated into the disk and therefore without impact on processor resources.
How to disable BitLocker feature on Windows 11 Pro?
Here’s how to see if BitLocker is enabled in Windows 11 Pro and, if so, how to turn it off.
► Enter the term Guest in the Windows search box. The Command Prompt tool appears at the top of the results. Click on Execute as administrator.
► In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command and validate with Entrance :
manage-bde -status
► A list of results is displayed. Locate the line Conversion Status. If she mentions Fully decipheredand if the line Encryption method placed below indicates None, then BitLocker is not enabled on your PC. You can perform these checks on all the disks present in your machine listed in the window.
► If, on the contrary, it is indicated XTS-AES 128BitLocker is indeed activated.
► If you’re allergic to command lines, you can also open the old Windows Control Panel. Go to the section System and security and click BitLocker drive encryption.
► You will then be able to see if BitLocker encryption is activated for one or more disks.
► To disable BitLocker encryption easily, open Command Prompt as administrator and enter the following command:
manage-bde -off C :
► Replace VS : by the letter of the volume concerned by the encryption and validate.
► You can also go through the Control Panel as indicated above and click on Disable BitLocker.
There you go, now you know how to disable BitLocker on your PC. Of course, you lose the protection provided by this encryption system, but it is not essential and, above all, you regain the full performance of your SSD and therefore of your PC.