Speed up External USB Hard Drives in Windows Vista
If you have an external hard drive that is always plugged into your computer, you can enable write caching to speed up performance significantly when writing to the disk.
Write caching isn't enabled by default for external drives because removable devices could lose data if you unplug them too quickly, so take care when using this setting.
To change this setting, just type Device Manager into the start menu search box, and hit enter.
Browse down to the external hard drive that you wish to enable write caching on, and double click it to open up the properties screen.
Just change the setting to "Optimize for performance" and hit OK to continue. You'll have to reboot for the setting to take effect.
The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 04/26/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, Vista Tips & Tweaks
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( http://www.tweako.com )
I've been noticing a small trickle of traffic coming in from tweako, so I assume I have you to thank =)
Haha no problem - thank you. Your content and your site is very impressive. I am very happy to link to your articles. Hopefully soon that trickle will have a little more kick to it. If you ever feel like beating my members to it, feel free to come submit your stories yourself.
no website…my sons laptop hp has windows vista on it…only has 120gb's and is already used it up..he puts little videos on it..well, he needs an external hard drive…we are looking and according to consumer reports..Iomega is the best .and then seagate and then and then simple tech, and then maxtor and then western digital and then LaCie……now..with all that info…there is a differenc in windows xp then vista…what external…hard drives will work best with vista….and prices vary depending on where one buys it..I dont want to pay an arm and a leg…but…I dont want it to break down easily either and want it to be easy to use..my son isnt a computer geek..he wishes he was…but..if you have any advice on it..let me know…or to which degree of external hard drive does a vista need..like say we decided on a seagate…is there a particular seagate that works with vista and one that doesnt…let me know thanks..vickie
Hi. I don't know if this actually relates to the above post. I have recently bought a new laptop with Vista Premium home edition installed. The external hard drive which I have had for a while, worked fine with with it up until last night. I hot swapped the external hard drive with my mates laptop (XP) and when I plugged it back in, it picks it up, but is now asking for drivers which it has never done before. Any simple solution to the problem as drivers from the manufacturers(Iomega) website don't seem to solve the problem.
I had an odd problem with my external Western Digital 250 gb harddrive, and my solution, though a bit time consuming, may help you above poster. When I first plugged it in, it had previously been on my Windows XP Pro machine, and when I turned it on, it was also picked up, but it didn't ask for drivers, rather it hung during some sort of reading process and the disk was spewing odd crackling noises. Well, I hooked it up to another xp machine I had and it worked fine, I transfered my data from taht disk onto my vista machine, and formatted it in the xp machine. After all that was said and done, I reconnected it to my vista machine and it picked up the disk when I turned it on, and no more hang ups. Just to be on the safe side, I reformatted it in Vista assuming Vista might have some funky new formatting techniques up its sleeve. Well, either way, my data is all safe and back on that disk and it works fine. So, long story short, I'd format it and try again.