While we are on the subject of I/O cache, that JAZ mentioned in another thread. Microsoft by default enables potentially dangerous feature in Windows XP. I thought I would mention it in case there may be some of you not aware of it. I know it caught me by surprise to learn that Microsoft thinks it is a good idea to turn on "write cache" on your hard drive in XP Pro. I don't know if this is the case in XP Home Edition as I don't have any experience with that version.
I guess they wanted the slight performance boost this feature gives the XP. This will speed up the performance of XP especially with slower hard drives because the system doesn't have to wait until the data is written to the drive before going on to the next task. The problem that makes this a risky configuration is if the system locks up or is interrupted in some way, the data in cache is never written to the drive and will be lost.
The odds are that this may never impact you. But I don't think the extra performance boost is worth the risk. That's just my opinion.
I guess they wanted the slight performance boost this feature gives the XP. This will speed up the performance of XP especially with slower hard drives because the system doesn't have to wait until the data is written to the drive before going on to the next task. The problem that makes this a risky configuration is if the system locks up or is interrupted in some way, the data in cache is never written to the drive and will be lost.
The odds are that this may never impact you. But I don't think the extra performance boost is worth the risk. That's just my opinion.
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