Hard drive speed boosts

How to Increase Hard Drive Performance in Vista​

   Information

This will show you how to increase the hard drive performance by enabling Advanced Performance, disabling NTFS from creating 8.3 versions of file names, and defragging on a regular schedule.

   Note

You can follow all the steps below, or just pick the ones you would like to do.

STEP ONE

Enable Advanced Performance for Hard Drive

   Warning

This option enables extremely aggressive write caching that will speed up the hard drive's performance, but it can also cause you to lose data in the drive's cache if you lose power suddenly. It is not recommended for laptops that run on battery power all the time. While this is fine for the normal home desktop, it may not be a good idea if you have unreliable power.

   Note

This may not be supported by some hard drive setups (Ex: RAID). If it does not, then you will see that it will just change back to the default settings automatically when you look at the Properties again.

1. Open the Control Panel. (Classic View)​

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2. Click on the Device Manager icon.​

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3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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4. Close the Control Panel.​

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5. Click on Disk drives to expand it. (See screenshot below)​

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6. Right click on your hard drive device listing and click Properties.​

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7. Click on the Policies tab. (See screenshots below)​

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8. For a ATA (Parallel) or Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Drive​

A) Check the Enable write caching on the disk box. (See left screenshot below step 10)​

NOTE: This should already be checked by default.​

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B) Check the Enable Advanced performance box.​

NOTE: If this will not stay checked for you, then check to make sure that you have the latest chipset drivers installed for your motherboard. Also see: Write-Caching - Enable or Disable - Windows 7 Forums​

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9. For an External Hard Drive​

A) Dot Optimize for performance. (See right screenshot below step 10)​

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10. Click on OK to apply.​

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STEP TWO

Disable NTFS from Creating 8.3 Versions of File Names for Backwards Compatiblity with DOS

NOTE: You will not need this unless you work with DOS or the command prompt and have long file names.

1. Open the Start Menu.​

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2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.​

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3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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4. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below)​

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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Filesystem​

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5. In the right pane, right click on NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation and click on Modify.​

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6. Type 1 and click on OK. (See screenshow below)​

NOTE: To enable it again, type 0 (number) instead.​

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7. Close regedit.​

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STEP THREE

Defrag the Hard Drive on a Regular Schedule

1. If you use Vista's Disk Defragmenter, see the link below on how to create a automatic defrag schedule.​

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How to Change the Schedule for Disk Defragmenter in Vista​

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2. If you do not like Vista's Disk Defragmenter, you can use a 3rd party program instead. Auslogics Disk Defrag is a great program that has a status graph of the hard drive's defragmentation progress, but the free version does not have a automatic defrag schedule. Here is the link:​

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Disk Defrag - Best Free Defrag Software For Your Hard Drive​

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3. Here is a recommended schedule of times to defrag.​

NOTE: The more you save and delete items off your hard drive, the more often you should defrag. Adjust to your needs.​

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Scheduled Time	Description
Once a Month	For a user that is only on the computer a few hours a week and does not do much file saving and deleting. You rarely install and uninstall programs.
Once a Week	For most average users that use the computer for a few hours on a daily basis and does a lot more file saving and deleting. You only do a few installing and uninstalling of programs.
Once a Day	For your power user that uses the computer for several hours a day and does an unbelievable amount of file saving and deleting. You do a lot of installing and uninstalling of programs.

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Enjoy faster performance,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Speed Up the Performance of Vista
• How to Disable or Enable Low Disk Space Warning in Vista
• How to Shrink and Create a Partition with Disk Management in Vista
• How to Delete and Extend a Partition with Disk Management in Vista
• How to Change a Drive Icon in Vista
• How to Show or Remove Drive Letters from Displaying in Vista
• How to Rename a Drive in Vista
• How to Add, Change, or Remove a Drive Letter in Vista
• How to Restrict or Unrestict Drive Access in Vista
• How to Hide or Unhide a Drive in Vista
• How to Create a Drive Shortcut in Vista

 

[Harkin]

I hope we aren't confusing the Motherboard chipset drivers with the Raid drivers?

 

[amplid]

Hey guys, one question, what is RAID??

Amplid

 

[z3r010]

Hey guys, one question, what is RAID??

Amplid

RAID - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[amplid]

Haha thanks z3r010

Amplid

 

[channelv]

If the checkbox doesn't stay checked, then it is most likely one of two things:

1. You are using the Intel Matrix drivers, which is fine - it enables advanced performance, such as this, and NCQ by default, so it won't let you check the box

2. You have Intel Turbo Memory - the drivers include the Intel Matrix driver, thus advanced performance is already enabled as well and the checkbox mentioned here doesn't do anything.

Either case, don't worry - the hard drive has all advanced features enabled with these drivers already.

 

[SCSIraidGURU]

SCSI and SCSI RAID controllers using non-Microsoft manufacturer drivers don't have this problem. Microsoft only disabled write caching in its drivers. I use SCSI, SCSI RAID, and SAS RAID controller with the manufacturer drivers. You can check them with dskcache utility.

 

[PainlessTorture]

If i enable advanced performance and my power goes off, will i lose everything?

 

[Brink]

Hi Fmjc001,

You would only lose what was currently in the cache files of your hard drive that has not been written to the hard drive yet. This would only be what you were currently doing when you lost power. You would not lose everything on the hard drive.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[PainlessTorture]

Hi Fmjc001,

You would only lose what was currently in the cache files of your hard drive that has not been written to the hard drive yet. This would only be what you were currently doing when you lost power. You would not lose everything on the hard drive.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Ok thanks, Another great tut!

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Fmjc001.

Shawn

 

[Nitrius]

I've been wondering a long time, if i should turn this on. When you are talking about loosing data on power loss, do you mean all data? Or just the current data? Like files you just downloaded, word files you just wrote and so on...


Edit: This was already answered i see, thanks.
Another thing then, when you shutdown things get written to the hard drive right? lets see you do some work, and you shutdown the computer right after, will that make you lose something?

 

[Brink]

Hi Nitrius,

It would always be best to save anything you were working on and close it before shutting down the computer to be safe.

If you just shutdown the computer, you will lose anything that was not saved by you to the hard drive.

If you put or let the computer go into Sleep mode, then everything is saved to RAM and is restored when you wake the computer up unless you lose power. You would then lose anything that was not saved to the hard drive.

If you put or let the computer go into Hybrid sleep mode, then everything is saved to the RAM and hard drive and is restored when you wake the computer up. A power loss will not cause any loss of data, but it takes longer to wakeup the computer than Sleep mode.

If you put or let the computer go into Hibernation sleep mode, then everything is saved to the hard drive and is restored when you wake the computer up. A power loss will not cause any loss of data, but it takes longer to wakeup the computer than Sleep mode or Hybrid sleep mode.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Nitrius]

Thanks for your answer =)

Another question here, activating this added cache writing, will that "tear" more on the hard drive it self? like is there a bigger chance of your hard drive taking the night?

 

[Brink]

Actually, it can help towards lowering the wear & tear a little since the hard drive will use the RAM more for caching than writing on the hard drive itself when it's cache runs out.

 

[jmdolesky]

Disabling Last Access Time Stamps increase the performance of EWF (Enhanced Write Filter)

EWF overview:

Key Name: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem
Name: NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Windows Performance Monitor records physical disk performance data by default
The newsgroups are filled with messages about errors in the Event logs concerning Logical and Physical counters, that is source=PerfDisk. To clear up these errors and gain back some disk performance:
C:\>diskperf -N

(Source:MSDN)

Works like a charm with my U320 SCSI Drives

 

[Brink]

Hi Jmdolesky,

Thank you for sharing this. I already have a value of 1 for NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate. Is this the value to change it to, or the default value?

Shawn

 

[jmdolesky]

Well by Defaut the value is set to O....so if you have the value set to 1 now its good for you...i guess some hotfix from $M fixed that (i.e SP1)...:D
J-M

 

[jmdolesky]

SCSI and SCSI RAID controllers using non-Microsoft manufacturer drivers don't have this problem. Microsoft only disabled write caching in its drivers. I use SCSI, SCSI RAID, and SAS RAID controller with the manufacturer drivers. You can check them with dskcache utility.

dskcache [ +p | -p ] [ +w | -w ] [/i | /s | Drive_Specifier ]
• Set (+) or clear (-) the disk cache value:
• p : Power protected write cache (not supported on all operating system versions)
• w : Write cache
• Drive selection (default is all drives)
• /i : Integrated device electronics (IDE) disks only
• /s : Small computer system interface (SCSI) (includes Fiber Channel) disks only
• Drive_Specifier : Drive letter, volume name, or physical drive. Use the following formats:
• Drive letter in the following format: c:, d:, and others
• Volume name in the following format:
\\?\Volume{8fc37c41-bdd3-11d5-b897-806d6172696f}\
• Physical drive: PhysicalDrive0, PhysicalDrive1, and others
• If no options are used, current settings for all fixed disks will be displayed.

Be carefull If you turn on the Power Protected write cache option, you increase the risk of data loss or corruption that may occur during a power outage or equipment failure. Only turn on this option for disk devices that are adequately protected against accidental loss of power

JM

 

[Brink]

Thank you JM. You should write this up as a Tutorial. I'll be happy to help you with it if needed.

Shawn

 

[jmdolesky]

Well thank you SHAWN but im very busy ATM....I just get 1 week of vacation thats why im surfing a lot on the Web now...I stopped by there because i found your forums very interresting...
Im also very active on some french website like Generation NT.com but still not getting Nuff time to make some TUTOs.
Im a (lonely) system administrator Self-Employed so i leave you imagine how my Days are long and the nights short.
Ill get another Break in September so i guess i should get time to think about your suggestion.:D
No worries ill stop by there again time to time
Thx again dude
Take care...have a great day
JM..

Sorry for my English...but im still trying to become fluent in english