In Windows Vista there is a hardware tweak which can improve performance, but there are a few criteria that must be met in order to insure functionality and stability of altering these settings. This setting in Windows Vista can alter the way your hard drive accesses information and can enhance the performance.The main requirements for this setting in Windows Vista are:
- Hard disk drive must be a SATA(Serial ATA) drive
- The computer must have a battery backup (All laptops are included in this category)
If your Windows Vista computer is configured with a SATA disk drive you have the ability to tweak the performance of the hard drive. This can easily be done by enhancing write caching. Of course for stability and to prevent the loss of critical information please note your computer should be connected to a battery backup in case you have a power loss. Of course this is ideal for a laptop configuration since your laptop battery is a form of battery backup.
This option makes Windows Vista bypass the cache which in turn changes the functionality to where the operating system reads and writes directly to your hard drive. being disabled this option is a buffer to protect your hard drive from sudden losses of power that might corrupt or lose data. This is why it is best to only enable this option for systems with a battery backup.
To perform the SATA hard disk drive performance enhancement please follow the instructions below:
- Logon to Windows Vista with an Administrators group user account.
- Go to Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Device Manager. Alternatively, right click on “Computer”, and select “Properties”. Then click on “Device Manager” on the left Tasks pane. Give User Account Control permission to Continue.
- Expand the “Disk drives”, and find the SATA hard disk installed on the system.
- Double click on the SATA HDD device or right click on the S-ATA HDD then select “Properties”.
- Click on “Policies” tab.
- Tick the check box of “Enable advanced performance” nested under “Enable write caching on the disk” to enable the SATA harddisk performance improvement.
- You may also have to select “Optimize for performance” instead of “Optimize for quick removal” if it’s not selected. This option is only selectable on SATA hard disk, else if using PATA or IDE hard disk, you won’t see the options, or the settings are grayed out or disabled.
- Click OK, then exit from Device Manager.
Dependent upon your system this may require performing a restart. If for any reason you experience issues after changing this setting follow the directions to reverse this change.Improved hard disk speed and performance will generally help to increase the system speed and improve performance of Vista.
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