ArcGIS Pro performance is slow on Windows 11 24H2 and later versions when reading/writing to a network storage device

Description

During routine software tests, Esri has identified a significant performance degradation when performing many file read/write operations on Windows 11 24H2 and later Windows 11 versions. Esri’s testing was against a NetApp device, but this problem may also be present on other similar devices. Common operations that will exhibit the performance problem include file create/delete, file existence checks, attribute queries, and directory enumeration.  This has been reproduced outside of ArcGIS using a simple PowerShell script. Regression test runs that normally take 6 hours to complete using Windows 10 now take up to 12 hours to complete using Windows 11 24H2 and later versions.

Cause

In Windows 11 24H2 and later, BFS (Brokering File System), a file system minifilter driver, introduces extra metadata checks and brokering overhead for SMB operations. This significantly slows down metadata-heavy workloads (e.g., file geodatabase operations, directory enumeration, and file existence checks) over network shares utilizing SMB BFS.

Solution or Workaround

This issue has been reported to Microsoft who have acknowledged the problem and are working on it.

• Esri has requested that Microsoft post a KB article describing the situation and possible mitigations.
• If you are impacted by this problem, the current recommendation is to contact Microsoft directly for a status update and possible workaround.
• Critical machines impacted by this BFS performance issue could roll back to a version of Windows 11 prior to 24H2.

NetApp has published a KB article about this problem. Refer to: Slow file copy speeds seen on Windows 11 24H2