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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[TABLE=class:-grid,-width:-700][TR][TD]
Scheduled Time
[/TD]
[TD]
Description
[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]
Once a Month
[/TD]
[TD]
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.
[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]
Once a Week
[/TD]
[TD]
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.
[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]
Once a Day
[/TD]
[TD]
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.
[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

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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

 

[syklitengutt]

Tnx for this.
I will try to update the chipset and bios.
I usually use the computer with power cord, so Im not worried about loosing stuff. The only times I use it without powersuply is when I watch dvds.

Il try and come back to you.

 

[syklitengutt]

Ok. It didn't help at all. Still the same. I Check the boxes, and press ok, and when I open them, its the same again, still unchecked.
I have disabled UAC, can this make a difference?

 

[Brink]

Chris,

I searched hi and low and you are not the only one with this problem. Everything points to the cause as the drives being on a Raid controller. If it is on a Raid controller, they say to adjust it from the Raid controller's settings instead. I have yet to find a solution for this if Raid is not the issue.

Sorry,
Shawn

 

[syklitengutt]

this is proborli too much info but heres the everest log from windows storage.

 

[Brink]

Chris,

I'm afraid this has me stomped to. I do not know what else to do to make it take the settings.

Shawn

 

[periboob]

I was eager to try this on my laptop, because I am connected to AC 98% of the time. But as reported by the other user, in my system the settings do not stick.

I can check the box by:
"Enable write caching on the disk"
But right below, it says
"This device does not allow its write cache setting to be modified"

All the other choices are grayed out.
This is a fairly new Dell, Maybe the newer ones, newer drivers, let you know that you cant change it, rather than just rejecting it..

 

[amplid]

Hey,

How do I know wether I have a backup power supply? Mean, can I check it without opening my case?

 

[Brink]

Hi amplid,

You would know if you had a backup UPS power supply box. It would be a separate box that plugs into your outlet, then you plug your computer into it. You can see more details on them here with a image of a example UPS box.

Uninterruptible power supply - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and

APC - Back-UPS - Product Information

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[amplid]

Right, thanks!!

 

[Brink]

Your welcome amplid.

 

[jim817]

Great guide, thanks. I have a question related to the Optimize for Quick Removal option.

I've got that setting for my flash drive, meaning I never use the Safe Removal option. The annoying thing is everytime I plug the flash drive in, I get a "Do you want to scan and fix the flash drive" prompt. I always click continue without scanning anyway, is there a way to disable to prompt message?

 

[Brink]

Jim,

That is a good question. I do not know though.

You might also post this question in one of the forums or newsgroups to see if someone may know that has experienced this to.

Sorry,
Shawn

 

[jim817]

Mmkay, thanks though. I think I will post this.

 

[Harkin]

Hey Brink, I have the same problem where I tick the box 'enable write caching' on my Raid setup, but after I close and come back it has been unticked? Any solutions yet?

Another question, when I was installing Vista64, I have my Raid drivers on a USB drive and tried loading them when I was prompted, but as soon as it has loaded up the files from the USB it made the install process freeze so I rebooted and tried without loading the drivers at all...and so far it has been fine. Question is I'm scared now as to whether I should have installed the chipset drivers once Vista had been installed? All seems to be working fine except this write caching business. Would loading the Chipset drivers perhaps fix this or increase performance at all? I have followed the rest of the guide and have done all the optomizations and it helped Alot...thanks for that man

 

[Brink]

Hi Harkin,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

Sorry, no solution yet. Some drive setups just do not support this option.

You might look in your RAID card or chip setup screen to see if there is a similar option to enable in it though.

Shawn

 

[Harkin]

Cheers Brink..

Well as soon as I load the Raid drivers in Vista (Intel Matrix Drivers) I get a whole lot of BSOD's. My Raid setup is running really slow with the deafault drivers that Vista installed, I'm only getting 5.7 score for HDD performance whereas everything else is 5.9, I just don't expect that from a Raid0 setup

 

[Harkin]

Actually wait that is wrong, I am getting 5.9, but I can tell that it is pretty slow, on XP the transfer rate was alot quicker, something just ain't working right. Plus I can't enable Write Caching. If I install the Chipset drivers for the motherboard could that help?

 

[z3r010]

Always install the chipset drivers

 

[scrooge]

I have the same problem where I tick the box 'enable write caching' on my Raid setup, but after I close and come back it has been unticked.
when i looked closer it's telling me the device does not allow it's cache to be modified.
is there a setting in the bios to change that?



thanks scrooge

 

[Harkin]

Always install the chipset drivers

I thought so, I was just a bit scared after the 1st time I did it and things went funny.. but I think that was down to the Raid drivers I installed in Vista. If I install the Motherboard Chipset drivers now and it goes wrong, is it recoverable? I haven't installed the Raid drivers in Vista because I know as a fact they don't work and gave me a million BSOD's...