Does AS SSD Benchmark Work on Windows 11? What to Expect from the 2020 Final Version
Short answer: yes, in practice — with an honest caveat. AS SSD Benchmark’s final version, 2.0.7316.34247, was built in January 2020, well before Windows 11 existed, and Windows 11 has never appeared in its official system listings. What we can say, and all we claim, is that community experience shows the program running on Windows 11 and producing normal results. This guide sets out exactly what is documented, what is community-tested, and where the untested edges are.
Before you start: back up important files on the drive you are troubleshooting. Most checks below are read-only, but the fixes that touch BIOS settings, partitions or drivers should never be attempted without a current backup.
What is actually documented
Keep the three layers separate, because Windows 11 pages on the internet routinely blur them. Documented: the final version is 2.0.7316.34247 from January 2020, it is freeware by Alexej Schepeljanski, and the system list recorded by Softpedia for this version covers Windows XP through Windows 10. Also documented: the program requires .NET Framework (no specific version is stated) and is portable, needing no installation. Not documented: any statement by the developer about Windows 11 support, optimisation or testing. The program has had no new version since 2020, so no later “Windows 11 update” exists — be wary of any download claiming to be one.
Community-tested: users have run this exact build on Windows 11 and benchmarked SATA and NVMe drives with it, and that hands-on experience — not a vendor promise — is the basis for saying it works. That is normally enough for a small portable benchmark, but it is a different kind of assurance from official support, and this page will not dress it up as more than it is. If your standard is “only runs software its maker certifies for this OS,” a 2020 tool will not meet it on Windows 11; if your standard is “runs correctly in real use,” community experience says it does.
How to run it cleanly on Windows 11
Use a fresh, verified copy and treat Windows 11 like any other install. Download via our download page, which links to the official alex-is.de file and publishes the SHA-256 hash verified by direct download, then extract the whole ZIP to an ordinary folder and keep the exe together with its en-US folder — otherwise the interface may open in German, the program’s default when the language files are missing. Launch it, select the drive, and run the default 1 GB test first. On a typical Windows 11 machine that is the entire procedure: no compatibility mode, no special settings.
Two ordinary Windows behaviours can interrupt a first run. SmartScreen or your security software may prompt on an unfamiliar portable exe — the correct response is to run only a copy whose hash you have verified, not to disable protection. And if the program needs direct device access for a test, an administrator launch is the standard remedy, exactly as on Windows 10; the related “Could not open physical device” case is covered in its own guide. Our startup guide covers the remaining launch failures at AS SSD Benchmark won’t start.
Compatibility settings: what helps and what is theatre
Windows’ compatibility modes are the most over-prescribed fix for this program. Because the build already runs natively on the Windows generations either side of it, forcing a Windows 7 or Windows 8 compatibility shim usually changes nothing except adding a variable. Try a plain launch, then an administrator launch; reach for compatibility settings only if both genuinely fail, and remove them again if they make no difference so the next person (probably you, in six months) is not debugging a shim nobody remembers adding.
Scaling and display settings are the other harmless oddity: on high-DPI Windows 11 displays, a 2020-era window may render small or slightly soft. That is cosmetic. It does not affect the measurements, and Windows’ display-scaling override in the exe’s properties is a safe, reversible way to make the window comfortable if it bothers you. Resist registry-based “compatibility fixes” found in old threads — for a portable benchmark they are risk without reward, and nothing in this guide requires one.
Reading Windows 11 scores honestly
A score earned on Windows 11 is read exactly like a score earned anywhere else: check the header (AHCI driver such as storahci, alignment OK), compare like-for-like test sizes, and remember the simplified scoring shape — Read = Seq × 0.1 + 4K + 4K-64Thrd, with the 4K rows doing the heavy lifting. Windows 11 itself is neither a bonus nor a penalty in the formula. If a result disappoints, the cause will be the usual suspects — controller mode, alignment, a nearly full drive, background Windows Update or sync activity in a young install — all worked through in the low-score checklist.
One Windows 11 habit deserves a specific mention: a new or newly upgraded system is rarely idle. Indexing, updates, cloud restore and app installs can run for hours after setup, and a benchmark taken in that window measures the storm, not the machine. Let a fresh Windows 11 install settle, reboot once, pause the obvious background work, and then benchmark. Reviewers’ numbers, whatever OS they used, came from settled systems.
The untested edges: ARM, virtual machines and unusual storage
Honesty requires a separate box for the configurations community experience does not cleanly cover. Windows 11 on ARM runs x86 programs through emulation, and whether this 2020 benchmark installs its device access correctly, reports the storage path faithfully and produces meaningful numbers under that emulation has not been verified here — treat ARM as “try it and judge carefully,” and do not compare emulated results against native ones. The same caution applies inside virtual machines generally, where the “physical device” is virtualised and both access errors and flattering or misleading scores are possible depending on how the host presents storage.
Unusual storage paths — drives behind certain USB enclosures, RAID volumes and storage-pool arrangements — sit in the same category on any Windows version: the program may work, may refuse the device, or may measure the bridge/pool layer more than the drive. None of that is a Windows 11 defect. Test on a direct internal connection when the number actually matters, and keep the method notes with the result so future comparisons stay honest. For the standard method itself, see how to use AS SSD Benchmark.
Verdict for Windows 11 users
Download the final 2020 build from a verified source, extract it completely, run it plainly, and expect it to work — that is the community-tested reality, stated without inventing an official Windows 11 certification the developer never issued. If it misbehaves, you are almost certainly looking at an extraction, permission or background-load problem covered in this cluster, not an OS incompatibility. And when it works — as it does on the Windows 11 machines it is run on every day — you get the same header warnings, the same Seq/4K/4K-64Thrd/Acc.time rows and the same honest scores the tool has produced since 2020. Old, finished and still useful is a fair description of both the program and, increasingly, the benchmark results it gives you on a modern system.