On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 1:28 AM, Graeme Carstairs <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One of our "Expert Users" > has discovered and article a magazine article regarding speeding up Windows, > and it suggested the following > The NTFS File system stores every file access in the form of a last-accesses > time stamp. If there are a lot of accesses, a waiting list is constructed in > RAM and this can really sap performance to speed up your NTFS partitions do > the following > 1. go to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem > 2. find or create a DWORD "NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate" and set its value to > 1. > He claims his PC is now noticeably faster. > My question is it safe to do this, and if it makes such a difference is it > worth doing on all PC's and possible servers?? > TIA > Graeme
This is equivalent to setting noatime on *nix OSes, and is safe, for some value of that variable. It does significantly help with access time for processes that suffer from disk IO bottlenecks, but is unlikely to be helpful on the majority of workstations, unless you have crappy antivirus apps running that are constantly scanning your drives. The biggest help I've found this setting to provide is for file servers that have directories with >10k files in them. File access times in those instances can nosedive, presenting the end user with very painful explorer browsing. Kurt ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
