I was just wondering, does anyone here use the "enable advanced performance" checkbox for their hard disk drives, found in device manager? And does it offer a significant performance increase?

I use the enable advanced performance checkbox on a WD SATA 500 GB hard disk drive. I haven't really checked the performance increase, but I doubt that it really does that much. Maybe others will have a different opinion. It probably depends on what specific tasks you're running as well.

The only significant performance increase involves the slow mechanics of the hard drive. HERE is a primer about Disk cache policy and how much of a performance gain it offers. Also be warned that there is one drawback. If your desktop is not protected by UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) or if your notebook or laptop battery is not fully-charged for Windows to fall back on in the event of power failure, you run the risk of losing data or you may experience file system corruptions as well. i_Xp/VistaUser