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Improve system performance with delayed writing

Serdar Yegulalp
01.05.2005
Rating: -3.40- (out of 5)

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Windows uses a special subsystem for certain disk functions, which caches write operations and performs them when the system is idle. This can improve system performance, but it's typically turned off by default. The term for this kind of operation is delayed writing.

You can see how write-caching is handled for a particular volume by right-clicking on the icon for the drive in the "Disk drives" subtree of the Device Manager and selecting the Policies tabs. The options typically are "Optimize for quick removal" (everything is written to the drive immediately) and "Optimize for performance" (writes are cached).

The first option lets you quickly disconnect drives -- for instance, hot-pluggable USB "pen" drives -- without first disconnecting them via the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray. If all the options are grayed out,

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this means write-caching is probably handled at the discretion of the device driver. (You can see more information about the way the defaults for write caching work in the Microsoft article, "Windows XP and Surprise Removal of Hardware" (http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/pnppwr/hotadd/XPrem-devs.mspx).

In Windows XP, the system may pop up a "Delayed Write Failed" notification balloon, which means that something has gone wrong with the delayed-write system. This does not always mean there has been a fatal problem, but you should take it seriously.

Some common reasons for a delayed-write failure are:

Serdar Yegulalp is the editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter. Check out his Windows 2000 blog for his latest advice and musings on the world of Windows network administrators -- please share your thoughts as well!

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