Device Manage - Disk drives - Policies

[DasFox]

My box is running the Raptor 150 for gaming only. Performance is all I care about and wanted to know is having "Enable write caching on the disk" important, will help, or will it cut into performance of the drive?

THANKS

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: DasFox
My box is running the Raptor 150 for gaming only. Performance is all I care about and wanted to know is having "Enable write caching on the disk" important, will help, or will it cut into performance of the drive?

THANKS

Enableing Write Cahcing will improve the write performance of the drive but turning it on can cause writing errors. If you want to improve performance go in to the drives firmware and turn off S.M.A.R.T.

S.M.A.R.T. eats up a big chunk of your interface bandwith and has a measureable impact on the read performace that will affect your game.

 

[Googer]

IF some thing that is in the que to be writen to the disk is lost (power outage) then it will translate in to an error on the drive. I have personaly had this happen and windows would not boot up. For gaming I doubt that you will seem much of an impact simply becasue most game depend on the read speed of the drive and do not do much writing.

 

[DasFox]

So keep "Enable write caching on the disk" on?

Then turn off S.M.A.R.T

Ok Thanks

 

[ribbon13]

write caching is basically:

program wants to write to disk
OS puts data in system RAM and tells program its already written to disk
power goes out
data in ram is lost because it never made it to drive, the drive is corrupted and your computer wont boot.


not really, but that should give you some idea as to why you should leave it off since it wont matter to games at all anyway.

 

[DasFox]

Googer my BIOS on this Abit KN8 SLI does not have S.M.A.R.T. the only things for the hard drive are:

IDE DMA transfer access
IDE HDD Block Mode

Ok thanks ribbon13 I'll take it off

THANKS

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: ribbon13
write caching is basically:

program wants to write to disk
OS puts data in system RAM and tells program its already written to disk
power goes out
data in ram is lost because it never made it to drive, the drive is corrupted and your computer wont boot.


not really, but that should give you some idea as to why you should leave it off since it wont matter to games at all anyway.

Well said.

Write Caching is optional. Turn it on only if you have a big UPS, other wise it is smart to keep it off unless you do not care too much about the data on that drive.

 

[DasFox]

Yes I turned it off, thanks. What about, these two?

IDE DMA transfer access
IDE HDD Block Mode

THANKS

 

[DasFox]

Bump

Anyone on these two:

IDE DMA transfer access
IDE HDD Block Mode

THANKS

 

[Auric]

I discovered some time ago that my mobo's CMOS Setup toggle for SMART capability is not for enabling or disabling reporting to SpeedFan and such but rather for some related optional hardware device. So as Googer alluded, perhaps it is not the correct place to look anyway and begs the question what utilities do allow toggling SMART in a drive's firmware? Not that I really want to turn it off but it is news to me that if it really adds to overhead. I have always left write caching on and only really considered disabling it for removeable devices. How much does it increase performance 'cause power outages are exceedingly rare?

 

[John]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Bump

Anyone on these two:

IDE DMA transfer access
IDE HDD Block Mode

THANKS

Enable both

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: John

Originally posted by: DasFox
Bump

Anyone on these two:

IDE DMA transfer access
IDE HDD Block Mode

THANKS

Enable both

Use the DMA number that is the Highest possible for your drive and Block Mode Should be depending on the BIOS, large or LBA.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Auric
I discovered some time ago that my mobo's CMOS Setup toggle for SMART capability is not for enabling or disabling reporting to SpeedFan and such but rather for some related optional hardware device. So as Googer alluded, perhaps it is not the correct place to look anyway and begs the question what utilities do allow toggling SMART in a drive's firmware? Not that I really want to turn it off but it is news to me that if it really adds to overhead. I have always left write caching on and only really considered disabling it for removeable devices. How much does it increase performance 'cause power outages are exceedingly rare?

You misunderstood.

How much does it increase performance 'cause power outages are exceedingly rare?

What I was refering to is the Write Cache. When it is enabled you run a higher risk of data corruption that is similar to RAID 0. When it is off, the performance loss is not that great for Write Cache.

Disableing S.M.A.R.T. does help performance oh so very slightly but it's no turbo method. To change this mode you can download software from your drives maker or you can find it pre-installed on The Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD).

 

[the Chase]

DasFox- where did you go to turn off your NCQ??(Or how)

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: the Chase
DasFox- where did you go to turn off your NCQ??(Or how)

You have to check it in two places and make sure it is active.

1. The Drives Firmware
2. The system BIOS
3. And with TCQ you had to enable a check box in Windows, but I an not sure about NCQ though.

 

[DasFox]

Two places I don't have any NCQ in the BIOS, what's this TCQ all about?

THANKs

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Two places I don't have any NCQ in the BIOS, what's this TCQ all about?

THANKs

TCQ or Tagged Command Queing is the predecessor to NCQ. TCQ has been present on older SCSI hard drives for many years and Some newer PATA HDD's (IBM 120GXP & 180GXP possible 7K250). You need a compatable controller and OS (NT4, 2k, XP). The only controller card ever produced for PATA drives was and still is made by PACIFIC DIGITAL also known as the DISCSTAQ.

NCQ is the improvement on TCQ. (If I remember correctly TCQ had slightly better single user performance)

 

[DasFox]

Ok, well I only have command queuing in the Device Manager.

THANKS

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: DasFox
Ok, well I only have command queuing in the Device Manager.

THANKS

Pre SP2 it used to say TCQ with a check box but MS has changed it to say Command Queing.