Hard drive and "write catching" question

[illuminatirex]

Hi, Just wanted to ask Does anyone know what does teh "Enable write catching on the disk" do? its the text in the hd properties on my harddrives, and is this related to teh "fault tolerance" that is displayed in the administrator /hard drive options(in the computer management, in administrative tools)

Is it better to have that write catching checked or unchecked?


btw I just installed a WD SE16 series (320GB) hd in a thermaltake external sata enclosure) and it supposedly got recognized and installed, but the hd is not visible in the "my computer" I was planing on using it as my main hard drive (just used it in the external enclosure for now) is it normal to not see that " ready to disconnect" icon? like the one that is always there when a usb drive is connected

Thank You

 

[illuminatirex]

anyone?

 

[jadeite]

If write caching is off, each time a write command is sent to the hard drive, it holds the command until the data is successfully recorded to the media. When caching is on the drive puts the write data in its buffer, tells Windows it is done (even though it is not recorded yet) and accepts more write commands. This process of asynchronously writing data in the background results in a number of optimizations the drive can make resulting in performance benefits. I really can't think of a good reason to turn it off for an internal hard drive.

 

[illuminatirex]

Thank You for the information, then I will leave it on as it is, btw how can i make my hrives fault tolerant?