Disable HDD Write Cache?

[LeftyAce]

Hi all,

I've been playing around with a new external harddrive, and would like to disable write caching, for quick removal. It's connected through eSATA, and does not appear in the "safely remove hardware" button. (My C: drive DOES appear, and always has on this computer...not sure why).

I went into properties in My Computer, and found the tab where you can "optimize for quick removal" or "optimize for performance." All the writing on the tab is greyed out; I can't change the selection, which is set to "optimize for performance."

The enclosure is an Apricorn ezBus DTS, with a Seagate hdd inside.

[glc]

This may be hard to believe, but your eSATA controller may not be compatible with hotswapping. Just for grins, pop the bracket in and connect it to a regular SATA port and see what happens.

[LeftyAce]

Bingo! I can now "safely eject" and disable write caching.

Theoretically, if I disable caching, I don't need to safely eject, right? I can just pull the drive out w/ no worries?

[glc]

Theoretically, but I wouldn't try it. I'd eject it.

[LeftyAce]

Alright, well I found that when I "safely remove" the drive, and turn it off, my processor usage spikes and stays at a steady 50-60% (with no processes shown occupying the cpu) indicating some kind of io error, right? Funny thing is, if I DON'T "safely remove" the drive, and just turn it off, I get not complaint and no cpu spike...Is this just an error in the hotplugging on the mobo? Not a big deal, I'll just turn off write caching and not eject it properly, but I'm curious what this may mean.

Thanks!

[glc]

Could be - SATA is designed to be hotplugged but in practice it may not quite work right. USB is just as flaky as far as I'm concerned.