Tweak Vista Tip #2 - Enhance SATA Drive Speed
April 3 Carl Nelson
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Update: This tweak, which as you can see I never tested for performance, does absolutely nothing. It’s a setting that dates back to the introduction of Windows 95, and is simply kept for compatibility. Read this Microsoft article for more information. Thanks to the antisocial cretin who left a rude annoying comment pointing this out to me. You may be an antisocial cretin, but you have some use still!
Here’s a quick tweak that will enhance drive performance easily. It is basically an enhanced version of Write Caching, which is already enabled by default. Microsoft suggests that you only enable Advanced Performance if your system is on a backup power supply, because the risk of data loss is greater when it is enabled.
If you’re willing to risk this, or if you’re already running on a UPS, follow these steps to enable advanced hard drive performance:
- Go into your Device Manager; right click on “Computer” (formerly called “My Computer”), and click “Properties”. On the left sidebar, there will be a task called “Device Manager”.
- Expand your list of Disk Drives. Double click the drives you want to change the setting for.
- Under the “Policies” tab, you will find the section for Write caching and Safe Removal. This is where you will find the option to Enable advanced performance. As I have mentioned, write caching will already be enabled by default, but advanced performance will not. Simply check the box, and you should have overall increased drive performance!
Be sure that you have a stable system before attempting this, and it is not recommended to use this setting on a laptop.
Filed under: PC Software
Tags: Software Tweaks, Vista
I wonder why it is “not recommended to use this setting on a laptop”. Laptops have batteries, so it’s a bit like running on a UPS (as long as you keep an eye on the batteries, of course).
Umm, you just answered your own question there.. “keep on eye on the batteries, of course”