I was wondering if "write caching" should be enabled on my new Seagate SATA 160gb hard drive?

Question

I have had serious problems in the recent past with many errors/programs being changed/system dumps and other strange things of all sorts and just wiped my hard drive and reinstalled everything. Since I have done this everything has been running perfectly and I haven't had any strange things happen yet. Don't want to take any chances though because it says that if the system shuts down unexpectedly data could be lost or corrupted. How much does write caching speed up hard drive performance anyway....is it worth taking the risk in my case??

Answer 1

The only benefit of using "write caching" is a marginal performance gain.



If you loose power during a write operation whateve is still in the cache is lost unless your machine is on a UPS.



Have fun but be safe!

Answer 2

If you transfer / write a huge amount, nearly constantly, then use write cache.



Of course, if you are doing that much, it is probably important.

Spend 50 dollars for a UPS/SPS. It can shut the PC down as the battery dies, saving all the data.



Otherwise, don't use it.

Answer 3

A new one is good:



http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/customer-open-marketplace-items/A30BA9E8K8714B/ref=fb_comi_spgl/104-8992182-2676741