Could be, my kids have identical pc's, but the disks are different. One has a slower ssd and its symptoms are exactly how you described, I knew it was slower but it's all I had around. Both pc's have SATA ssds. We're saving for new disks, which I'm sure will alleviate the symptoms.

At work a similar problem with Windows server. The hosting company changed the IO tier and like snow these issues disappeared. Clicking start and waiting for it to open would take a minute, completely unacceptable, but ultimately fixed by having faster storage.

I'm not saying Microsoft is doing good work, I'm suggesting a workaround until they do, which we both know is very probably never.

They already pushed out older hardware with Windows 11, they won't care about slower storage options.