While trying to install VMware VCSA 6.5 In my HomeLab I was experiencing issues with performance on my SSD’s. This issue was not present before I recently updated to VMware ESXI 6.5. I Immediately thought this could be related so I started troubleshooting this issue. I checked my storage adapters to confirm the VMware Driver that was being used –

I noticed this was using the VMW_AHCI Driver, as this was updated in VMware ESXI 6.5 I thought I would disable this driver so it would revert back to the older version of the driver that could be found in VMware ESXI 6.0.

I used the following command to verify the AHCI Drivers installed on my host.

esxcli software vib list | grep ahci

Once I confirmed as above I disabled the VMware ESXI 6.5 AHCI driver using the following command –

esxcli system module set –enabled=false –module=vmw_ahci

Once this command was completed I restarted my host to apply the changes. The performance has now reverted back to the previous performance metrics I was receiving with VMware ESXI 6.0. You can find more information about disabling these drivers here.