Hi
On the disk policies, should the "Enable write caching on the disk" be ticked (default XP setting) or anticked?
Stelios
Enable wrire caching on the disk
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It's actually delayed writes to the harddisk which in turn increases overall system performance, a nice feature and does speed up all operating system(s)
For overall good system performance windows puts data to be written to the disk(s) in a buffer area (temporary storage area). It delays writing to the harddisk until the buffers are full and also coordinates this writing to match overall system performance & needs.
The default setting of write caching lets the operating system handle this. For most systems this default setting is best handled by the operating system.
If you have a power outage you can lose data that's left in the buffer and wasn't written to disk yet. I think the odds are low on this happening because computers are so fast today.
Usually you disable write caching if your having problems writing to the disk and losing data with possible disk corruption. I think this is on most older systems though. Newer OS's use techniques to recover from a power loss.
I've always left mine at the default cach settings. No problems.
It also depends on the software program such as having 30 audio tracks in an audio editor write caching can cause audio syncing and delay problems for realtime recording & playback. These audio editors have a built-in feature in it's setup to change "Write-Caching" on the recording drives "On The Fly". Sonar Pro Audio being one of these programs. On the older systems I would disable write-caching, on these newer systems I don't notice any difference.
On my laptop 2.8Ghz Non-HT Processor I can record/transfer realtime highdef mpeg2 from my camcorder to an external usb harddisk without any problems having write caching enabled. If I disable write caching my laptop blogs down and dropped frames occur with errors.
But if you do have write caching turned off on an external drive you can usually disconnect it without losing any data. Just unplug it when setup correctly.
For overall good system performance windows puts data to be written to the disk(s) in a buffer area (temporary storage area). It delays writing to the harddisk until the buffers are full and also coordinates this writing to match overall system performance & needs.
The default setting of write caching lets the operating system handle this. For most systems this default setting is best handled by the operating system.
If you have a power outage you can lose data that's left in the buffer and wasn't written to disk yet. I think the odds are low on this happening because computers are so fast today.
Usually you disable write caching if your having problems writing to the disk and losing data with possible disk corruption. I think this is on most older systems though. Newer OS's use techniques to recover from a power loss.
I've always left mine at the default cach settings. No problems.
It also depends on the software program such as having 30 audio tracks in an audio editor write caching can cause audio syncing and delay problems for realtime recording & playback. These audio editors have a built-in feature in it's setup to change "Write-Caching" on the recording drives "On The Fly". Sonar Pro Audio being one of these programs. On the older systems I would disable write-caching, on these newer systems I don't notice any difference.
On my laptop 2.8Ghz Non-HT Processor I can record/transfer realtime highdef mpeg2 from my camcorder to an external usb harddisk without any problems having write caching enabled. If I disable write caching my laptop blogs down and dropped frames occur with errors.
But if you do have write caching turned off on an external drive you can usually disconnect it without losing any data. Just unplug it when setup correctly.