Windows Vista Performance Tip: Enable Write Caching
By Bob Plankers on Jan 29, 2007 in System Administration
On my PCs write caching wasn’t enabled by default for my system disk. Turn it on in the device manager (Right click “Computer”, choose “Properties,” choose “Device Manager” from the sidebar, expand the disk drives category, right click your drive, choose “Properties,” pick the “Policies” tab):
I don’t suggest enabling this for removable media, as it pretty much guarantees data loss if you remove the device without stopping it first.
3 Comment(s)
By Josh on Feb 11, 2007 | Reply
Great find. However, when I enable write caching and then close and reopen the properties box it is right back to the default with no check marks. I disabled UAC and I also rebooted thinking maybe the settings didn’t stick until a reboot. Any ideas?
By Bob on Feb 12, 2007 | Reply
No idea… maybe it knows something we don’t about the hardware you’re
running.
By Mark on Feb 17, 2007 | Reply
I actually had the opposite. My caching was turned on but it was causing my computer to crash. I finnaly located the cause, the hard drive cache being enabled. I have an abit NF-95 MB and SATA WD drive. This could be due to no specific Vista drivers for my MB. So I turned off the cache and all works again. Of course I will be happy once I can turn this on again.