Ok to disable NTFS last access time (NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate = 1)?

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by randman, May 6, 2007.

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  1. randman

    randman Registered Member

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    By default, when a file is accessed, NTFS writes information to record when the file is last accessed. One of the often discussed ways to improve NTFS disk performance is to disable the NTFS last-accessed timestamp. This is discussed in many places:

    http://technet2.microsoft.com/windo...7f13-4ac3-8da8-48ebd60b44471033.mspx?mfr=true

    I've thought of disabling this, but am worried about potential impacts of doing so. Does Acronis True Image Home 10.0 use the last accessed time at all?Anyone know of other programs that use the last accessed time?

    Thanks.
     
  2. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello randman,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    We are sorry for the delayed response.

    Please notice that we do not expect any issues using Acronis software with NTFS last access time disabled.

    Thank you.
    --
    Marat Setdikov
     
  3. randman

    randman Registered Member

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    Thanks!!
     
  4. crjackson

    crjackson Registered Member

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    I always turn that off as well as drive indexing service. They do nothing I need.
     
  5. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    I would NOT disable AccessTime changes as one never knows when that might affect some program using Access Time.
     
  6. randman

    randman Registered Member

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    That's why I posed this question. So far, I haven't identified any programs that I use that would be affected. Newer (and more expensive) versions of Diskeeper have the I-FAAST feature which uses the access time. I use an old version of Diskeeper that doesn't use the last access time.
     
  7. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    I agree. Problem is you use nothing now that would be affected, but 8 months from now you buy some new software, that needs it, and you will have hell to pay figuring out what is wrong. Just not worth the gain.

    Pete
     
  8. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Any program worth its salt that relies on last-access-time being active should check to see if it is and, if it isn't, advise the user accordingly and ask the user if it's okay to set it to active.
     
  9. randman

    randman Registered Member

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    Yes, theoretically, it would be nice if a program that uses the last access time would tell you if you had it disabled. But, it's probably something we can't rely on. While it would be nice to turn it off for performance reasons, I do agree that it may not be worth the trouble.
     
  10. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Your right, but likewise a good imaging program like Acronis should be able to alert you that the partition table is hosed say after the Killdisk trojan gets hold of it, and possibly even offer a solution, but it doesn't. It just fails, and doesn't even know the disk is there. Such is reality.
     
  11. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    Disabling Access time would have a negligible "benefit".
    First, If the file is creaded or modified, the cost of modifying te access time is, in effect, 0.

    The biggest impact is on directory access times, e.g., see http://www.standards.com/index.html?ChangeFileTimes.
    It's those darn directory access times that are a pain in the back rank, to use polite chess terminology.
     
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