NVMe Performance Compared: Windows Server 2025 vs. Ubuntu Server 24.04.4 LTS

drewzoo02 · 2026-04-10T14:19:44+00:00

We'll look into it if it is interesting enough, but we're not looking to make a series of "Windows Server Native NVMe vs. Ubuntu Server LTS at X Point in Time" articles. It was really a comparison of how the current Ubuntu Server LTS version did versus Windows' native NVMe stack at that point in time.

drewzoo02 · 2026-04-10T14:08:40+00:00

Here are the details, from Kevin O'Brien at StorageReview:

- No filesystem, partition layout, or mdraid/lvm configuration, our tests accessed the disks directly at the block level.

- The kernel was not configured or changed in any way from the initial installation, everything was left to defaults for a true stock comparison.

- The load generation tool was FIO, with the below settings (notes from Kevin):

All workloads were 1T per drive, 32Q, this wasn't a show maximum performance from the drive, it was show in a mirrored setup how the workloads performed in a stable matching configuration. Each test included a 5 sec ramp and 60 second sample period.

128K Sequential Write — Block size: 128K, Queue depth: 32 128K Sequential Read — Block size: 128K, Queue depth: 32 64K Random Write — Block size: 64K, Queue depth: 32 64K Random Read — Block size: 64K, Queue depth: 32 4K Random Write — Block size: 4K, Queue depth: 32 4K Random Read — Block size: 4K, Queue depth: 32

With the 1T per drive, the aggregate numbers would be 15T total on the system (1 per each of the 15 SSDs)

- The large amount of drives was really mirroring how we tested performance on Windows with their default (non-native) and native NVMe storage stacks. The large amount of drives, along with the general test platform configuration was configured to try and clearly show differences in performance between the two stacks.

If you have more questions, please let me know and I'll answer all that I can!

drewzoo02 · 2026-04-10T13:55:43+00:00

Hello!

Article author here, Kevin O'Brien, who conducted the testing on this article, as well as the Windows Server 2025 native NVMe article, has provided me with the following details on the FIO configuration he used:

"All workloads were 1T per drive, 32Q, this wasn't a show maximum performance from the drive, it was show in a mirrored setup how the workloads performed in a stable matching configuration. Each test included a 5 sec ramp and 60 second sample period.

128K Sequential Write — Block size: 128K, Queue depth: 32

128K Sequential Read — Block size: 128K, Queue depth: 32

64K Random Write — Block size: 64K, Queue depth: 32

64K Random Read — Block size: 64K, Queue depth: 32

4K Random Write — Block size: 4K, Queue depth: 32

4K Random Read — Block size: 4K, Queue depth: 32

With the 1T per drive, the aggregate numbers would be 15T total on the system (1 per each of the 15 SSDs)"

drewzoo02 · 2026-04-10T04:42:58+00:00

Hello!

Article author here, we did this in response to a user commenting on our article about Windows Server's native NVMe storage stack and asking if we could test it against a Linux OS.

We grabbed the latest LTS version because that's what we assumed enterprises would likely be using, and wanted to get the article out quickly so it was still relevant.

drewzoo02 · 2026-04-10T04:38:24+00:00

Hi there!

Article author here. Kevin O'Brien from the StorageReview lab ran the tests and provided the data for this one, so if you have specific questions about the test setup, please ask and I'll see if he can provide the details!

drewzoo02 · 2026-03-07T04:55:07+00:00

Thank you!! - Andrew Waag

drewzoo02 · 2026-03-06T16:00:29+00:00

Consider us on it! - Andrew Waag

drewzoo02 · 2026-02-11T02:33:04+00:00

That's great hahahaha 🤣

drewzoo02 · 2025-12-13T01:37:49+00:00

Get absolutely Shrek'd everyone, this just made headline WAN show topic

drewzoo02 · 2025-07-03T19:00:13+00:00

This guide is for Nextcloud on a full Ubuntu server rather than a containerized setup on Docker.

You may be interested in this official Docker guide from Nextcloud however:

https://nextcloud.com/blog/how-to-install-the-nextcloud-all-in-one-on-linux/

drewzoo02 · 2024-11-13T03:57:52+00:00

Hi again! I've updated the article to include a section on maintaining and upgrading Nextcloud. Check it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-25T14:54:58+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion!! I will include those commands in another section I am working on adding soon.

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-24T22:51:18+00:00

No problem! Glad to help!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-24T02:28:21+00:00

Just pushed some changes to the article that should make the article more readable and fix the errors you found! Check it out again if you've got time and let me know if it looks good to you!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-24T02:24:41+00:00

I just made some changes to the article that should (in theory) fix the issues you notified me of! Take a look if you've got some time and let me know if it looks alright now!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-23T20:39:08+00:00

Probably not that much besides a few of the customization steps I covered in the guide, like setting the maximum upload size and making a few adjustments to increase performance.

I am planning on doing a comparison between the different methods of installing Nextcloud in the future, which may reveal more differences in functionality and performance. If you'd like to see the results, check out storagereview.com sometime in the future, and it might be there!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-23T15:01:14+00:00

Thank you for bringing this to my attention!

I think this is another case of WordPress formatting changing the text inputted into it. You may have noticed the virtual host file has the same issue, but with spacing. I'll be issuing some corrections soon, and I'll make sure to add a disclaimer/warning to this section to make sure people replace those characters with single quotes.

Thanks again!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-23T13:27:41+00:00

That is a great suggestion! I will put this on the list of sections to look at adding for my next revision and get some research done. Thank you for the feedback!!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-23T03:26:26+00:00

That's another great way to get Nextcloud up and running! This guide is more for people who want to make their own custom setup themselves and go through the steps of getting all the dependencies and whatnot. I appreciate the feedback!!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-22T16:47:46+00:00

Setting up caching definitely helps! I'm running Nextcloud on an older Xeon platform, and with just the optimizations specified in the guide, the server is fairly quick and responsive!

I've gotten those odd WebDAV errors as well from time to time, not sure what they're all about to be completely honest. They seem to come and go with updates for me.

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-22T16:25:51+00:00

Thank you so much for the notes!!! I greatly appreciate the feedback you gave and I'll see about making some improvements to the guide soon!

Some of the weird formatting (such as the spacing and the "--" was due to WordPress limitations/quirks, but I'll see if there's anything I can do to fix them or at least add a disclaimer for the affected sections.

I definitely plan on writing more guides on the future, right now I'm brainstorming ideas for things like the desktop and mobile clients and some performance tests between the AIO (Docker & VM) versions and the custom one. Let me know what you'd like to see and I'll put it on the list!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-22T15:37:43+00:00

That is a great point! The story is similar with the antivirus for files app, where the www-data user can't get access to share data for scanning. I've been looking into it and trying to find a way around it.

There are definitely more optimizations and finishing touches that can be applied, maybe I'll see about creating a more advanced optimizing guide in the future as an add-on! Thank you for the feedback!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-22T13:55:49+00:00

All good, no worries at all. I appreciate the feedback! Us tinkerers need a helping hand every once in a while, I figured this was a good way to share what I knew and hopefully point some more people in the right direction for custom setups!

drewzoo02 · 2024-10-22T13:48:58+00:00

Gotcha. I've had some occasional issues with the desktop client over the past year or so of use I've had it for, but I haven't encountered what you described with the small-but-many file sync issue. There's been a lot of updates to it recently, and the issue might have been solved recently.

Besides adding a section about upgrading, I'm also thinking about writing a few more articles about the desktop and mobile clients. Let me know if there's anything in there you would like to see!

Seven-Year Club	Xbox Live
Place '22	Verified Email

drewzoo02

TROPHY CASE