Disabling Write Behind Caching

What of this write behind caching? Is it recommended I run the procedure mentioned below? Do download the Windows IDE Hard Drive Cache Package from windows update? Or do I not make any changes?  Write-behind caching.

Versions of Windows published since about 2000 have a feature called 'write behind caching' and by default, it is enabled. The intention is to speed up operations, but read on...

What is write behind caching?
When you File a drawing, or use the Windows Save... or Save As... menus, your intention is to write your work to a disk drive - either a local or a network drive. What recent Windows systems actually do is 'make a note of the fact' that your intention is to create or modify a disk file, then save your information somewhere in memory, and only actually write it to the disk drive at some later time. It is part of this caching system that a program is unable to determine that this is going on, and so your program, in this case Accucadd, is 'convinced' that it has successfully committed your work to disk when in fact it's sitting someplace else, and potentially vulnerable to loss or corruption.

Since for most people the increase in performance is actually negligible, the risk of data loss far outweighs any benefit. We therefore recommend that you disable write-behind caching on all your disk drives. You'll find instructions below for Windows 3.1, 95/98, NT, ME, XP,  2000 - 2003.

How might this affect you?
We have had a number of reports of problems with drawings that we think are caused by (or at least related to) this issue. In some cases the drawing in question was destroyed, so this can be a very serious issue. The problem usually shows itself when a drawing that was filed in one session had errors when trying to load it in the next session. A related problem concerns drawings that are visible in the pictorial index (and in fact perfectly OK) but lack an active 'handle' to use for loading or inserting the drawing.

Disabling write behind caching

The following information is taken from an article on the web site of the Government of South Australia Dept. of Education and Children's Services, School Library Software Support Centre IT Services, Australia.

"Most Windows systems, by default, have write-behind caching enabled. This speeds up disk-write operations by holding data in memory until the computer thinks it is the right time to write it to disk.

This same system can also cause conflicts with shared files and networked software .... Because the data is not being written directly to the hard drive on the spot, delays imposed by caching can cause a server or workstation to become confused and to cause data corruption.

If this happens, the computer’s 'disk write caching' functions should be disabled.

The process to disable write caching is different for various versions of Windows.


Windows 95/98/ME
Start at the desktop.
Right-click on My Computer, then left-click on Properties.
Click on the Performance tab at the top.
Click on the File System button at the bottom.
Click on the Troubleshooting tab at the top.
Click on Disable write-behind caching for all drives to put a tick next to it.
Make sure it is ticked.
Click on OK to close the File System window.
Click on OK to close the System Properties window.

(Also check for the existence and content of the config and autoexec files, below.)