Talking about this option in pic (accessible from Disk Management). Windows now defaults external hard disks to ‘quick removal’.
I have 16TB Seagate external hard disks with regular movement of data. They are always connected to the PC and I have no power issues.
Which option gives faster data transfer speeds (and other metrics of better performance)?
Also, if Better Performance is to be selected, should I enable the other 2 options below (write caching and buffer flush)?
Thanks!
I always eject the device properly no matter what this setting is set to.
I’d say it’s best to keep it set for quick removal as that way you are protected against “accidents”.
it does not change the data transfer speed. It just enables write cache which is a small(ish) memory buffer that stores the data while it is written to the disk in the background.
Everything will need the same time to write to the drive, only difference is, that the software that writes to the disk will think the data is written, while in reality it is only in the memory and the disk is still working in the background. That data will be lost if you disconnect the drive without properly ejecting it, or the windows crashes, or sudden power loss, or anything happens.
It has some effects with small parallel random writes, but it doesn’t do much with sequential performance of large files. You can easily compare the performance between the settings with your real-life usage, but don’t expect much difference.