Enhance Hard Disk Performance in Vista

[TheMafioso]

Hi Guys,

I have Vista Ultimate 32-Bit installed on my PC. For some reason, I was looking at hardware properties of each and every device of my computer in Device Manger.I've found in Hardware properties of my Hard Disk's there's an option Which says "Enhance Performance" . It also does mention that, enhancing performance is reccomended for drives with battery backup only as data loss may occour in case of power faliure...

I've googled around a bit to know more about this option and what kind of boost it gives and the risks involved but i'm unable to find anything...So any here can give more info about it?

Regards,

 

[AllGamer]

i have it on, it seems to runs faster, but i can't tell for sure since i have Raptors

just turn it on, and run some HDD benches to see the minor difference

 

[TheMafioso]

yep, did that....was hopin to see benchmarks, too lazy to carry out my own

 

[mechBgon]

That option enables write cacheing, IIRC.

 

[NewMaxx]

It should increase performance in certain applications, but I believe this was originally a setting to reproduce a bug dating back from Windows 3.11 that actually increased performance sometimes by bypassing flush calls.

http://www.microsoft.com/techn...fidential/default.aspx

 

[SaoFeng]

is this safe to turn on for laptop computers?

 

[NewMaxx]

It is possible to suffer file corruption from this in the case of any power issues, so I generally do not use this "feature." However, it is fairly safe if you take precautions, and laptops should never have a sudden power outage.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: SaoFeng
is this safe to turn on for laptop computers?

depends on how often you find yourself without power.

If you have the option, which I'm assuming most everyone does with Vista, then sure. However, I can't say that it would benefit you as far as battery life. You may lose some due to extra activity on the HD? Just a guess.

If you're running a hulk though that's mostly plugged in all the time, go for it.


I was looking at this about a month ago, I didn't enable it though as I have a Raptor, not really sure I could see that much more of a difference. I'm replacing the damn thing anyways, it's too loud. (first revision 74gb raptor btw).

 

[Smilin]

I'm just guessing here..

In some form or another you're doing write caching, or increasing the write caching done (perhaps reduced flushes as mentioned).

read caching is perfectly safe. Write caching can put you in a pickle if you lose power while something that is "safely written to disk" is in fact sitting in memory.


This would be a bad option for laptops I think.

 

[TheMafioso]

There's different option for Enabling/Disabling Write Caching, it comes up above this option and is checked by default...
This does something different or increase write caching...

BTW My PC dosen't have any problems with power, as I'm using a UPS...but I think it should increase data loss risk due to crashing/sudden reboots..

 

[NewMaxx]

It ignores flush (buffer) calls...I linked to the Microsoft TechNet document in my post above. It will definitely increase data loss risk from crashes/reboots.

 

[TheMafioso]

ok thanx for clearing up that Maxx

 

[Nothinman]

It ignores flush (buffer) calls...I linked to the Microsoft TechNet document in my post above. It will definitely increase data loss risk from crashes/reboots.

Wow, that is extremely stupid. I can't believe MS would even make that an option.

 

[NewMaxx]

Yeah, it seems pretty silly, but if you read through that article it explains that the original bug increased performance significantly on some applications so they decided to put it back in as an option (along with a warning about the risks). The bug apparently appeared again in Windows 2003 and they added the option to it and Vista.

 

[Nothinman]

I read the article and I think it's an incredibly stupid option to make available.

 

[NewMaxx]

It really should be more of an optional hack rather than "advanced performance," I'll agree with that much.

 

[Nothinman]

It shouldn't be optional at all, fsync (or whatever win32 call they're talking about) should work as expected and losing people's data in favor of performance shouldn't have even entered their minds.

 

[PepperBreath]

It does work as expected. They just allow you to break it for extra speed if you don't mind the risk. You don't have to turn it on if you don't want to. Options are good.

 

[Nothinman]

Options are good when they make sense and it's clear what they do, neither of which are true in this case.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would be concerned about unwritten data not being properly flushed at shutdown, if you disable the flush cache commands.

Btw, the Promise Ultra100/133 TX2 drivers from Maxtor's site have this option as well, offering to optionally pass along the flush cache commands. I have it enabled, don't like dataloss.

 

[Nothinman]

You're lucky if the drive gives you the option, a lot of consumer level drives ignore cache flush commands completely so that they can claim higher benchmark scores.

 

[corkyg]

I just checked my Thinkpad T-60 - which has a new Hitachi 200 GB - 7200 RPM drive. In Device Manager under Policies (Vista) it has that advanced option with a caveat about insuring that the drive has backup power.)

I opted to try it because laptops inherently have backed up power - i.e., when on the A/C adapter, there is instant battery backup, so that really is not a problem.

It works OK - so I'll just try it for a while. I have the drive fully cloned to a ready-to-insert duplicate drive just in case - however, I doubt that it will be needed. Sort of like carrying an umbrella - it never rains then.