If your ATA (IDE), USB, or SATA drive is not performing at its optimal level, then a performance change is needed.

To get the best performance from your added hard drives (This includes ATA IDE, USB, and SATA drives that you add to your system after the initial hard drive that came with your computer) and to make the added drive act like your main hard drive, for speed and performance. Perform the following actions.

When you connect a new hard drive to your system for added storage, you might notice it isn't as fast as the hard drive that came with your computer. This behavior is built into Windows by default.

To make your newly installed USB Hard Drive or SATA Hard Drive perform at its optimal level of performance, perform the following actions.

[Windows XP]

• Open [My Computer]Right-click on your hard drive (does not matter which drive you choose here)
• Click on [Properties]
• Click on the [Hardware] tab

You may be asked to restart the system. At this time, save all your work and choose [yes].

[Windows 7] (This should work for Windows Vista as well)

• Open [Computer]
• Right-click on the added hard drive.Click on [Properties]
• Then click on [Hardware]
• Choose the drive that you want to work withClick [Properties]
• Click [Change Settings]
• Click [Policies]
• Check [Enable write caching on the device]

In most cases, the drive should already be set to this under Windows 7, unless you are still running the older Beta versions of Windows 7; in that case, you will have the following options, which differ from the most recent release.
[Quick removal (default) better performance]

Windows XP does not have this option selected for added drives.
Windows Vista will most likely not have it selected either.