How to Force Enhance Performance Mode for USB Drives in Windows 10
In the latest Windows 10 update, Windows 10 1809 , Microsoft changed the default USB drive transfer setting to speed up uninstallation rather than improve performance.
Although “quick erase” has been the default policy for some disk formats such as FAT32 since Windows 7, the Window 10 1809 update now makes it the default policy for all disk formats, including NTFS and exFAT. Some formats previously used Best Performance by default, which caches writes to the USB drive to improve system performance, but these cached transfers must be completed before the drive is removed to prevent data loss, hence the Safe deletion “. With this change, users will no longer need to select “Safely Remove USB Device” before disconnecting from their PC – at least by default.
While there is concern that using the default Quick Erase policy will slow down the performance of USB devices, it can be a good thing as it prevents erroneous transfers if the drive is ejected too early. However, if you are really experiencing performance degradation, or simply prefer to manually select Safely Remove Hardware, here’s how to get your drive back to Best Performance mode.
- Connect your USB drive to your Windows computer.
- Open File Explorer, then go to that computer and write down the drive letter of your device (for example, “USB Flash Drive (C :)”).
- Open the Start menu, then type Disk Management in the search bar, or right-click Start> Disk Management.
- Find your drive at the bottom of the Disk Manager window, right-click its name and choose Properties> Policies.
- Select the policy you want to change to Better Performance.
- Check the box next to Enable write caching on this device.