Optimize USB disk speed performance by enabling Write Caching in Windows

To offer an enhanced solution, standalone Cove Data Protection (Cove) replaced Backup and Recovery. Where Backup and Recovery has been enabled and continues to be so for devices, the options presented here are still available.

If Backup and Recovery options are not present in your N-sight RMM, you need to use Cove.

To start a 30-day free trial of Cove, click the app switcher in the Product Bar, and select Cove Data Protection (Cove).

Quick Removal is configured by default when connecting a USB disk to a Windows machine (with this setting used to ensure the device can be unplugged without the need to go through the Safe Removal process) which in turn disables Write Caching.

Where speed problems are experienced with a USB attached disk (slow copying, reading or writing) it is possible to optimize its performance by enabling Write Caching in Windows Device Manager, improving access and write speeds to and from the disk.

As such we suggest enabling Write Caching before performing a Backup & Recovery Seed Backup.

Enable Write Caching

  1. Access the Computer Management console via:
    • Start > Run > compmgmt.msc, or
    • Right-click the Windows Start button and select Computer Management
  2. Select Device Manager in the left-pane
  3. Expand Disk drives in the central pane
  4. Right-click the drive and select Properties
  5. Navigate to the Policies tab
  6. In the Removal policy sections, change the setting from Quick removal (default) to Better performance (or Optimize for performance depending on the version of Windows)

  7. Click OK to save changes, and then exit out of the Windows dialogs

Where Write Caching is enabled please un-mount the disk using the Safely Remove Hardwareoption in Windows