Windows Tools, Help & Guides

The default setting in Windows Vista disables write caching for external drives. This is done so that you can eject the drive at any time without data loss. If you are willing to eject your drive each time, you can increase the performance of your external hard drives.

In this guide, we will turn write caching back on and activate advanced performance.

1. Click on the Start Button and type in Device Manager in the search box. Hit Enter.

   

2. Click on the + Next to Disk Drives.

   

3. Right click on your external hard drive and select Properties.

   

4. Select the Policies tab and select Optimize for performance.

   

5. Next, check Enable write caching on the disk and Enable advanced performance. (If the drive is a USB external hard drive. My example shows flash memory.)
6. Click OK and reboot your computer.

You’re done. Be sure to check my other guides on and .

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix them.

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