Write-cache buffer

[speed258]

Hello is it worth it to "turn off windows write-cache buffer flushing on the device"? for hdd, I know its "dangerous", but by turning off is any gain in performance of hdd? And curious which data would be damaged in case of power failure, data stored in disk platter or in stored ram(hdd(ram which is in logic board of hdd)/actual ram)? And how to turn off it through registry or cmd? 

[WereCatf]

No, it's not worth it. Any performance-gain would be miniscule, not even noticeable. As for which data could be damaged: it depends. If the system was in the process of updating the various structures that hold the information on what files are spread over which sectors and how much free and used space there is, you could render the entire filesystem corrupt, or if it was just updating the contents of a file, you could just render that file corrupt.

[speed258]

7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

No, it's not worth it. Any performance-gain would be miniscule, not even noticeable. As for which data could be damaged: it depends. If the system was in the process of updating the various structures that hold the information on what files are spread over which sectors and how much free and used space there is, you could render the entire filesystem corrupt, or if it was just updating the contents of a file, you could just render that file corrupt.

Hmm weird since I read a lot about it and it says major improvement in Read/Write speeds.

[seagate_surfer]

It actually would be less dangerous to have the write-cache disabled, since the danger comes from the system holding something in the write cache, then experiencing an unexpected power outage, drive failure, etc. then what was being queued in the cache not having the chance to be properly written to the disk. 

As far as performance gains from disabling it, that seems to be something up for debate. Some say that disabling it allows for faster read speeds since there's no cache lookup on read processes, others feel that leaving the caching enabled allows for speedier on-the-fly writing performance. So just do a lot of research and maybe some testing as far as that piece of the puzzle goes.

See our Knowledge Base article for more info:

Disabling the Write Cache feature in Windows

[Mira Yurizaki]

8 hours ago, speed258 said:

Hmm weird since I read a lot about it and it says major improvement in Read/Write speeds.

Why don't you try running CrystalDiskMark or ATTO with the option on and off and compare the results?