how can i disable hdd caching

Boonesmi

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
14,448
1
81
i have a hdd i use for storage. its connected externally by way of a usb to ide adapter, and its just the bare drive. not in an enclosure.

i want to be able to plugin/unplug the usb cable at will, but im worried about data loss from data that windows has in cache (i dont like going through the process of "making usb device safe for removal")



anyone know how i can disable both windows cache and the hdd cache for just this device and still leave my other drives at default?? (ps. i know the drive will take a big performance hit, but thats not a concern)
 

zephyrprime

Diamond Member
Feb 18, 2001
7,512
2
81
Just go into drive properties in device manager and go into policies and select optimize for quick removal. It shoulsd already be set.

There's no way to disable the drive's own caching and doing so would exacerbate the problem you're trying to avoid since writing to the would be slower so there would be more time in which the drive is vulnerable to interrupted data.

Also, it's still not possible to be fully immune to this problem since you could start copying a 100MB file and then pull the plug immediately.
 

Boonesmi

Lifer
Feb 19, 2001
14,448
1
81
ahh tks, thats what i was looking for :)

and yeah i wasnt gonna pull the plug while transfering files... i just didnt want anything left in cache after the tranfer was done.



by the way it says "this setting disables write caching on the disk and in windows..." makes it sound like its disabling the 8mb hdd cache also ??