A Windows XP help forum. PCbanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » PCbanter forum » Microsoft Windows XP » Hardware and Windows XP
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Hard Drives Feel Like Not Caching



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old July 14th 12, 01:29 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
W[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 94
Default Hard Drives Feel Like Not Caching

I have a Windows XP installation on a Dell Precision workstation where the
drives apparently have no cache at all in the OS. There is extremely heavy
disk access on all operations and it doesn't feel like the OS has cached any
of the disk into memory. What are the options I need to check to help
understand if some default caching operations have been disabled for the
drive?

Drive is a RAID pair of 160GB Seagate SATA drives. Certainly they are not
speedsters, but we have other computers with the same hardware and those
perform much better.

--
W


Ads
  #2  
Old July 14th 12, 07:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
JJ[_7_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 71
Default Hard Drives Feel Like Not Caching

"W" wrote:

I have a Windows XP installation on a Dell Precision workstation
where the drives apparently have no cache at all in the OS.
There is extremely heavy disk access on all operations and it
doesn't feel like the OS has cached any of the disk into memory.
What are the options I need to check to help understand if
some default caching operations have been disabled for the
drive?

Drive is a RAID pair of 160GB Seagate SATA drives. Certainly
they are not speedsters, but we have other computers with the
same hardware and those perform much better.


Read caching is always enabled for all drives.

For write caching, it's disabled for USB based external drives.
To check it:
Open Device Manager and expand the "Disk drives" tree.
Double-click the harddisk and go to "Policies" tab.
Make sure the "Enable write caching on the disk" is enabled.

Also check the Event Viewer and look for warning/error events
regarding disk faults in case of faulty drive.
  #3  
Old July 14th 12, 08:10 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
W[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 94
Default Hard Drives Feel Like Not Caching

"JJ" wrote in message
. ..
"W" wrote:

I have a Windows XP installation on a Dell Precision workstation
where the drives apparently have no cache at all in the OS.
There is extremely heavy disk access on all operations and it
doesn't feel like the OS has cached any of the disk into memory.
What are the options I need to check to help understand if
some default caching operations have been disabled for the
drive?

Drive is a RAID pair of 160GB Seagate SATA drives. Certainly
they are not speedsters, but we have other computers with the
same hardware and those perform much better.


Read caching is always enabled for all drives.

For write caching, it's disabled for USB based external drives.
To check it:
Open Device Manager and expand the "Disk drives" tree.
Double-click the harddisk and go to "Policies" tab.
Make sure the "Enable write caching on the disk" is enabled.

Also check the Event Viewer and look for warning/error events
regarding disk faults in case of faulty drive.


For the boot volume C:, the "Enable write caching" option is selected by
default, and it is also greyed out so I cannot select or deselect it or any
sub-options.

I went ahead and used the Intel software RAID management application and I
enabled Write Cache on the RAID volume inside that tool. It doesn't appear
to change the result. The system is incredibly I/O intensive any time any
application is started.

--
W


  #4  
Old July 15th 12, 01:20 AM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Good Guy[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 3,354
Default Hard Drives Feel Like Not Caching

On 14/07/2012 01:29, W wrote:
I have a Windows XP installation on a Dell Precision workstation where the
drives apparently have no cache at all in the OS. There is extremely heavy
disk access on all operations and it doesn't feel like the OS has cached any
of the disk into memory. What are the options I need to check to help
understand if some default caching operations have been disabled for the
drive?

Drive is a RAID pair of 160GB Seagate SATA drives. Certainly they are not
speedsters, but we have other computers with the same hardware and those
perform much better.



Apart from HD caching you should also look at Windows Virtual Memory
settings. I don't think HD caching is an issue here. I suggest look at
this Microsoft article and follow it line by line and see if it has
improved at all on your system:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417

Good luck.


--
Good Guy
Website: http://mytaxsite.co.uk
Website: http://html-css.co.uk
Forums: http://mytaxsite.boardhost.com
Email: http://mytaxsite.co.uk/contact-us


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off






All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:19 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 PCbanter.
The comments are property of their posters.