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romandas
Asked: 2009-07-01 08:23:44 +0800 CST

How do you disable the "last accessed" attribute on NTFS/Windows?

  • 772

Inspired by this answer, I realize I have no idea how to disable the last accessed attribute in Windows to increase performance. If you can, how?

I know in Linux you can mount the partition with the 'noatime' option, but is there a similar feature in Windows for NTFS?

windows performance hard-drive ntfs

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer
    fsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 1

    But be careful, some program (especially backup programs) might need this.

    • 16

  2. The HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem\NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate (docs) registry entry is a REG_DWORD that can be:

    • 0: update the last-access timestamp, and record each change in the NTFS log (default)
    • 1: don't update the last-access timestamp, and don't record time stamp updates in the NTFS log

    Whether it makes much difference is debatable.

    JR

    • 9