Diable write cache on Maxtor HDD?

[Joemonkey]

Hitachi has a utility for their hard drives where you can enable/disable write and read cache if you so choose. Is there a way to do this with Maxtor HDDs as well? I can't see anything on the PowerMax software that allows this.

I have to be able to do it at the HDD level, not the OS or any software level, and no, i don't know why, i just need to do it.

 

[tad214]

see if this will help
http://www.harddiskinfo.com/Sections/FAQ/By_Category.asp?CategoryName=General%20Issues
DALE

 

[Joemonkey]

that's a pretty nice FAQ for HDDs, but the only question related to cache had to do with seagate HDDs.

 

[beatle]

Originally posted by: Joemonkey
I have to be able to do it at the HDD level, not the OS or any software level, and no, i don't know why, i just need to do it.

I don't understand. Why would you want to disable it, especially if you don't know why you want to.

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: beatle

Originally posted by: Joemonkey I have to be able to do it at the HDD level, not the OS or any software level, and no, i don't know why, i just need to do it.

I don't understand. Why would you want to disable it, especially if you don't know why you want to.

you'll understand one day when you are in the business world and the customer who pays your bills wants you to do something but doesn't give you a real good reason why

 

[Jeff7]

Only reason why it'd be good to disable it is if the drive is to be a removable device. That will greatly reduce the risk of file corruption, at the expense of performance. Just hope that the customer has some idea of what they're doing - not that "I heard that Right.Ca$h is a virus stored on the hard drive. How do I disenablize it?"
I'm afraid I can't offer any real help though...I know how to do it in WinXP Device Manager for some devices, but not at the hard drive level.

 

[Joemonkey]

i suppose the main reason they want to do this is in case of a power outage, data being written would be lost. there is no reason to have the cache enabled, as the application running does not take adavantage of it, and the application writes data to the hdds constantly.

wish maxtor had a "feature tool" like hitachi... after a lot of research it seems there are a few maxtor drives you can use a jumper on to disable the write cache